Turn up for work in the hazy hassle of a bumpy
rickshaw ride combined with the insistent buzz of the twenty missed calls on
your cheap Nokia cellphone. Know without even looking at the blue screen that
all calls are from the same person. Absently press the red button on the soft
plastic keys as you haggle with the fat rickshaw wala over a fare that you know he has already underpriced for
you—his regular. The continued buzz of the Nokia cuts into your conversation
and you thrust some rupee notes into his hand with a muttered cuss.
Harami.
The rickshaw wala
puckers his lips in an air-smooch, makes a thrusting movement with his right
leg and splutters the engine back into life. Ignore his insolent flirting and
waddle away obstinately, hoisting your obese black leather satchel on to your
shoulder.
Sweep through the street of Defense Phase Five, too
clean for your taste, with the subtly expensive houses boasting of merry green
lawns competing with each other over extravagant wastage of space. Somehow you
are reminded of the cramped alleys where you come from. A row of crooked,
building block-like houses placed together in an uncomfortable huddle of unfinished
brick and cheap cement could easily fit into any one of these lawns.
Stop in front of the house that you remember not by
house number but by the bronze gate that is too low to hide the expensive glass
doors and too flimsy to hold back intruders. But why should that a problem? The
iron barriers that flank each entrance to the streets of Defense are barricaded
by security guards who yawn lazily while asking you for ID and then let you in
without even looking at your face.
Debate whether to hop over the gate and test the
feeble security. Picture yourself waltzing through the glass doors in
victorious mirth without having to wait for someone to answer the doorbell.
Deny yourself a glorious moment. You remember they have a harami kutta loose in the grounds.
****
Be greeted unceremoniously by the shriveled up old
husk of the khansama. Nazir Baba grunts you into waiting in the
hallway for Bibi Ji. As usual the house isn’t ready for your waxing appointment--the
phone calls were just a ruse by the Bibi
Ji to rub your tardiness in your face.
****
Refuse the glass of Rooh Afza that is offered to you by the patronizing, wrinkled Nazir
baba as you wait for Mrs. Javed’s
call in the hallway. He ignores your feeble protests and crashes the glass on
the marble top side table and exits muttering a constant stream of abuses. Stare
for a moment at the artificially bright red drink crowned with large chunks of
ice—the drink itself occupies less space than the cubes. Shake your head in
disgust.
I can afford
this cheap drink myself you old fool.
Reluctantly give into the call of your throat,
parched with the dust from the rickshaw and reach for the sweating glass
tumbler to take a long cooling sip. Feel your fingers graze letters on the
bottom of the glass. Take a closer look and wrinkle your nose in distaste.
Marhaba Pure
Honey from the Swat Valley says the peeling sticker at the
bottom. The back of your skull heats up as you realize your significance in
this house being thrust in your face. An old honey bottle. That’s what you get
to drink from.
I bet the bhenchod
kutta in the house has its own special plate too.
Scratch the glass furiously with your cinnamon
colored fingernails until the wet sticker comes apart in the palm of your hand.
Place it back on the table nonchalantly. Second thoughts— you are too thirsty.
Take the glass back and drain it noisily until you hear her shrill and rude-- ‘Nasreen foran andar ao!’
Decide what to do with the glass. You don’t want to
be served in it ever again. Look around to see if anybody is watching. Deftly
toss the tumbler on to the floor and hear the satisfying crack of substandard
glass, muffled by the thick maroon velvet rug on the floor.
There you go.
Pull up your plump leather satchel more firmly on to
your shoulders, yell back, “Agayi
Madam” and walk through the teak doors into the master bedroom, your head held
jauntily high.
******
Miniature Mrs. Javed is still in the bathroom. You
used to wax Mrs. Javed too once. Ever since she decided she was menopausal you
only do her jawan daughter—the
miniature Mrs. Javed. You don’t mind losing a regular customer though. You find
it ridiculously amusing that Mrs. Javed is menopausal at 48. You used to wonder
why the feminine Mrs. Javed was so content at having lost her prized ‘womanhood’. Then you figured it was just so that she
would have an excuse to not sleep with the 200 pound over weight Mr. Javed
anymore. Snicker.
Rich people and
their problems.
****
Lay down your arsenal of waxing paraphernalia onto
an old newspaper spread wide over the marble floor. The Malee pineapple tin that constitutes for the pot of wax goes on the
left, the fraying strips of denim to the right and the unusually large butter
knife on a ceramic plate to the side of the tin.
Survey your handiwork. It looks like a setting for a
solitary dinner party. Reach into your deflated black, leather satchel, pull
out a bottle of Johnson’s baby powder and place it smack in the middle of the newspaper—the
centerpiece.
Much better.
You can hear the bathroom door being unlocked. In she
walks, the miniature Mrs. Javed wearing black men’s boxers, a pink camisole and
a sparkly ring.
That’s new.
As she ties up her hair into a floppy knot atop her
heart-shaped face, she tells you she’s getting married.
Bahut bara aadmi
hai. Citibank ka head hai. Nahi Nahi, Lahore mein nahi. NewYork mein. Haan mein
bhi waha shift ho rahi hon. Shaadi ke baad. Visa lag jaye buss. Visa aaj kal
kisi ko nahin milta.Tumhein kya pata.
She stops to give you a sharp glance.
Achi si waxing
karna aaj. Dinner party pe jana hai meinay.
Nod your head. After all, you know that rich men
don’t sleep with hairy women. Imagine miniature Mrs. Javed being rejected in
bed by her fiancée for having un-waxed armpits. Hold back a peal of laughter
but then immediately sober up.
Congratulations to you. You lose another regular.
Debate whether to tell her that she will need to
take off her ring to get waxed. Decide not to. After all you might just enjoy
accidently spilling hot wax all over her ring finger. Maybe even destroy those
insolent sparkles in the process.
*******
Grimacing, miniature Mrs. Javed lowers herself on to
your level. Gingerly she holds out one leg, covered with soft, dark fuzz. You
know what to do.
Dip the butter knife into the pot of wax. Blow on
the golden syrup to cool it. Feel the tension in her muscles as you lather the
honey gel on to the slim calf in a well-rehearsed rhythm.
Slather.
Slather. Swipe. Swipe.
Lay a denim strip on to the hair suspended in the
hardening wax. Feel her boring gaze on the top of your head as you squat over,
pressing the tips of your fingers into the rough denim to make it stick to
skin. Pause. This is your favorite part.
Look
at her in the eye for a split second.
Tear
away the strip of cloth in one fluid move.
Hear
a yelp of pain in the distance but ignore it.
Slather.
Slather. Swipe. Swipe. Ripppp. Slather. Swipe. Rippp.
The
ritual has begun.
*****
Drop the last denim rag on to the newspaper and
breathe heavily. Miniature Mrs. Javed staggers to her feet. Her legs curving
into the black cotton boxers, now hair free, are rosy pink—a testimony to the
pain. Busy yourself with packing up your satchel but watch her out of the
corner of your eye. She wobbles dizzily to her mahogany dresser, her footsteps
making a sticky crunch as remnants of wax stick to the marble floor.
Get used to
pain. You’ll get plenty of it on your wedding night when your Citibank husband
fucks your skinny ass to get his money’s worth.
She seems too tired to haggle and hands you what you
ask. Tuck the money she offers you securely into the strap of your second-hand
brasserie, satisfied. Wipe your hands on a spare denim strip instead of asking
for permission to use the bathroom. Pack your leather bag in a hurry, ignoring
the spill of wax on the side of the tin. You want to leave. The expensive beige
walls are suffocating you now by boasting of the money spent on them.
****
Take the bus home instead of signaling a rickshaw.
Stagger into the stench of sweaty bodies cramped into blue carpeted seats
emblazoned with graffiti left by lustful hands. You are in your territory now.
Clench your feet, pressing the tips of your toenails into the hard plastic of
your chappal. The floor seems to loll away from beneath
your feet. Look for your favorite spot but it’s gone; invaded by a woman with
massive thighs that jiggle merrily as she hands out Country juice-boxes to impossibly
tiny hands that try to clutch at every inch of the faded, rumpled lawn print spread over the mounds of
shapeless, drooping breasts. Make a disappointed clucking sound that seems to
escape from your dry throat on its own accord. The juice-box woman doesn’t
notice. Just like she doesn’t notice the streak of an artificial yellow that
has made its way onto her shalwar,
snaking down a river of thin cotton, marking rivulets between individual rolls
of fat and turning a nonchalant white into a naked brown as liquid touches skin.
Compare that to the image of miniature Mrs. Javed’s pale brown thighs turning
pink and then finally milk-white after shedding a layer of skin and hair.
Debate whether to tell her or not and even rehearse
a quick patronizing conversation in your head, (Maa ji, andhi ho kya?! bachay ne shalwar pe juice gira ke nanga kar
diya hai!) but then decide against it. After all, she did take your seat.
The bus gives a tremendous lurch as if it’s going to
vomit it’s passengers out. The juice-box woman’s thighs wobble dangerously.
There are no seats left for you and you have no choice but to grab a side pole
where you will stand in clear view of every passenger.
Turn and see an uncomfortably, flabby man in the
opposite aisle, staring at the juice-box woman a hungry look on his face—blank
eyes and slightly parted lips. First you think that he’s just thirsty, like you
after spending hours grunting, squatting poring over every inch of skin looking
for unsightly hair. Another look and you realize that instead of reflecting the
lurid, mango-yellow plastic of the juice box, his pupils are following the
movement of juice as it stealthily creates splotches of dark on a white shalwar.
Note how the blink of his eyes is attuned to the jiggle of the juice-box
woman’s thighs in a rhythm that you can mimic in your head:
Jiggle. Blink.
Jiggle. Blink. Jiggle. Jiggle. Blink. Blink
Suppress a reluctant giggle and wrap your hands
firmly around the pole. The pole is rusty and chipped just like the cheap,
cinnamon nail polish on your toes. The ride is only twenty minutes now. You’ll
make it home to drunken Pa and mousy Ma in time before the evening news.
This is your
place. You belong here.
Tighten your grip as the bus grunts noisily to a particularly
difficult turn. Your hands still feel uncomfortably sticky with wax. Invisible
scraps of shabby paint graze the palm of your clammy hand and obstinately lodge
themselves beneath your fingernails. You hardly notice. In the awkward space
where thirty five seats are carrying forty passengers-- two sets of hips
squeezed into the space of one, you can only feel an unwanted presence creeping
up your spine. Pretend that the tight bun fixed atop your head needs fixing and
sneak a look from the corner of your eye. See a man at the back undressing you
in his eyes, your naked shape clearly visible in his dark irises. Clench your
hips trying to make them look smaller and look again. You snicker--he’s got
your measurements wrong. Instead of the 32 A that you are, in his eyes you can
see the 36 C of the woman sitting on the seat opposite your pole pasted on top
of your 24 inch waist.
Maa Behan in
chutiyon ki. They don’t need boxer shorts and pink camisoles to get a fucking
erection.
Debate whether to turn around and disappoint him
with your actual chest. Rehearse a dramatic movement (slip off your duppatta the next time the bus coughs
violently, bend down nonchalantly to pick it up and see his eyes frantically
search for non-existent cleavage around the V-neck of your kameez) but decide against it. After all, you had always wanted to
be a 36 C.
Suck in air until your breasts strain against the
buttons of your kameez. Drop your
leather satchel to floor. Place it strategically between your slightly parted
legs. Stealthily hitch up your shalwar to reveal more than just a slim ankle.
Rub your wrists together in a heat of friction that gives off a warm, faintly
dry smell of the fake Nike perfume you got from the Sunday bazaar. Forget that
you remove hair from people’s bodies to make a living. In the musty air of the
bus comprising of hundreds of breaths squeezed out from behind dirty, yellowing
teeth--you feel beautiful.
