Cogito Ergo Sum

Life is boring, unless we do something to break the monotony. My innate inclination for feeling bored is quite high. So I have to constantly keep doing different things. That's the reason why I wear Saree whenever I get a chance. Last Friday for a function I wore a Saree, this time in another different style making friends and Aunts wonder what type of a Saree it was.

Wearing Saree is not quite unusual to me. Hence I badly wanted to do something very much foreign and unnatural (to me). Suddenly I realized that visiting a beauty parlour is a good option for that. It would improve my GK on some girlish (OK..feminine) matters as well. But go there for what? I had never visited one in my life, because even my regular hair trimming is done by my Mom. I didn't want to do waxing or eyebrow shaping or facials, as they would require regular updations. So I went for a one time thingy, i.e... well I'll reserve the suspense till the end.

So on this Sunday, I set my foot into a beauty parlour. As soon as I entered, the beautician (who must be about my age) started her sermons on maintaining the face and body well. She said that I didn't maintain them at all. She treated me with a pitiful scorn and remarked that I was ignorant and naive. She carried herself with a philosopher's stature as though I was there to get enlightened by her preaches. Yeah, you guessed it right, it was me who was completely responsible for her actions, as I don't know to pretend things which I'm not familiar with. She even went to the extent of saying, "You know, the day of saying I'm natural and all that is gone. Nobody gives any value to such natural-ness anymore. It is not a matter of looking modern, it is just a matter of looking neat, presentable and healthy(!?). You are not interested in all these because you haven't got the right guy, once you get one, you'll want to impress him and you'll land up here often!". My goodness!

She started with her work on my hair. She took about one and half hours to complete it. Another one hour was subtracted from my precious lifetime for drying (and another half an hour now, for writing this blog). In the meantime, got the chance to observe and interview several ladies there. Waxing seemed to be too painful. Eyebrow shaping even more so. Least painful of the lot was applying facials and sitting idle for 2 hours. Nevertheless they all seemed to enjoy it!. Some males were also there for pedicure, manicure, colouring the hair etc. In between the beautician made one more interesting comment, when she finally understood that she can't hope for success in brain-washing me: "There should be people like you too around, otherwise what is the difference between those who are conscious and those who are not? Like without villain in a movie, hero will not have any value.." something like this, which everyone appreciated though there was a difference of opinion between me and them on who was the hero and who was the villain, I must say. Finally I came out with a "crown-streaked" wine-red colour hair and a strong resolution not to visit the bugging, boring, preachy, sickening place once again. Very well learnt that beauty parlours are not for me, who doesn't even use any cosmetics.

This hair colour will remain for a good 6 months it seems. It is not looking too bad on me. My Mom had strictly objected, and that was one more motivation for getting it done. But no one believed it until they actually saw my hair. I secretly enjoyed the responses of people who knew me really well. "Are you serious?", "No, it can't be","Aparna is not the one who would colour her hair", "When did you become like that?" People can hardly accept any change, more so with changes associated with other peoples'(whom they think they know well) behaviours. Can they?

# posted by Aparna @ 6:03 PM