Fair and Lovely

‘Gudiyaraaniii! Aehhhh gudiyaraani! Where are you?’

Oh god! There comes Prabhaben again, the maalishwaali, my personal masseuse. It’s only been a month since I arrived in this world, 27 days ago to be precise, and I’m already wondering if it was worth the trouble. Worse, I sometimes wonder if Mummy feels the same way too about the hardships she undertook to bring me here, given Prabhaben’s ceaseless tirades against me.

While Mummy was still marveling at the miracle she was holding in her arms on day one, I could hear visitors whispering to her: ‘You can try again.’ ‘This is just your first time’ ‘The odds will surely favour you the next time.’

Although they had no clue, I knew just what they meant. ‘Only if you had prayed in the temple, God would have shown the kindness of granting you a son.’ My first lesson on the ways of this world.

I quickly grew suspicious of all outsiders. So when Prabhaben flounced into my life in her kitschy chiffon saree, a red saucer-sized dot on her forehead advertising her marital status, she became the chief object of my abhorrence.

She studied me with a stern professorial expression, inspecting me like a rat held by its tail before dissection. ‘Your daughter has a lot of hair on her forehead,’ she said to Mummy with a hint of disapproval. ‘Plus, she barely escapes being called dark.’ Then, throwing me up in the air like dough, she declared, ‘But don’t you.worry, laado. Your hair will be gone in a few weeks time. And you’ll be wheatish to boot.’

‘Thik hai, then.’ She got down to business now. ‘We need a floor mat, sesame oil, chickpea-flour paste, towel, clothes and diapers. And I hope you haven’t forgotten the baby powder.”  

Mummy produced the needful as if by magic. As Prabhaben plumped down on the floor mat and began undressing me, I could hear her innumerable bangles clinking. Greasing her palms with sesame oil, she rubbed them on my body with full force. “Urrrghhhhhh” I gurgled in pain and gave Mummy a hurt look. ‘Don’t cry, my baby. You’ll enjoy this,’ her eyes said. With her rough, cracked fingers, Prabhaben then kneaded my earlobes and cheeks.

‘Waaaaaaaah!’

It was like being moulded into a shape my body and soul weren’t very keen to assume.

And just when I thought this maalish madness was over, Prabhaben smeared some chickpea-flour paste on my face and began rubbing my cheeks in small circular strokes. Then, without warning, she plucked out, from its very root, a hair from my forehead. It wouldn’t be the last one she plucked.

‘Arrrrrrghhhhhhh,’ I wailed, mortally wounded now. ‘O masseuse from hell. Why don’t you grant me a quicker death?’ I wanted to ask but Mummy intervened on my behalf which offended Prabhaben no end. No one dared challenged her six years’ experience. ‘Don’t blame me, didi, if you don’t find a groom for your daughter when she grows up all dark and furry.’

‘Furry? Me? Stop treating me like a Chewbacca,’ I wanted to protest. ‘Is this all there is to being a girl?’

But Prabhaben hadn’t finished yet. Holding me upside down by my feet, she poured oil right into my nostrils, three drops in each. Perhaps this was her way of making sure I breathed only days. ‘Didi, your daughter has a tiny nose. We’ll have to pull at it everyday to get it to the right size,’ she joked. She was a fault-finding machine for sure.

‘Enough Prabhaben,’ Mummy interjected taking me in her arms. ‘I love her the way she is because I made her that.’ I finally smiled my first toothless smile.

P.S. This is a short story of little girl.