For years, like a homing pigeon

I’d return to a small salon

In the backlanes of my home

The door opened with tinkling bells

Where beyond a pink curtain, red dragons flew across the wall

I surrendered myself to the gaggle of girls

With smiling eyes and poker-straight hair

Who spoke a language I didn’t understand

**

Theirs was a business of pampering

They made you look and feel good

So I’d wait for my turn watching women

get their limbs waxed, their brows plucked and faces massaged

and slathered with creams and fruits peels

We’d glance and our eyes would meet and multiply into infinity in the mirrors

Before cool cucumber slices covered their tired lids, and let them slip into bliss

‘What you want?’ a girl would ask

The others would giggle and say, knowingly…

‘She wait for Veronica and Rowena’

**

They’ve seen me across several seasons

As the strange creature of habit

Who allowed only two girls to touch my hair –

The plump Veronica with rosy cheeks, and a tongue as sharp as the scissors she held

And Rowena, a gentle waif with freckles and hair that cascaded in a black waterfall straight down to her hips

**

‘I need a trim and straightening’ I’d say

‘Full trim?’

‘No, just split ends’

‘Your hair is so dry. You need oil massage and hair spa, it will soften nicely.’

‘Next time, now I’m in a hurry’

‘Why you want straighten? Nice curls, you got. Natural, no? Not perm.’

‘Yes, natural. But I want your hair’

Everyone giggle…

‘You want mine and I want your!’

Rowena takes a jet spray to moisten my mane

She combs and clasps a tendril and shows me

‘This much?’

I nod.

Snip. Snip. Snip.

A sweet attendant pulls out the iron

‘No, she like hairdryer’ Veronica shouts.

The others chatter like babblers.

**

On one such visit, I asked ‘What language do you speak?

‘Assamese’

‘Oh, I’ve been to Assam’

‘Really, where?’

‘To Guwahati, Hajo, Sualkuchi, Majuli, Tezpur, Jorhat, Sibsagar, Dibrugarh, Kaziranga, Nameri, Manas…’

And their eyes would widen and shine… as they repeated each name after me

Like an echo in the hills…

‘You gone all places. Next time, come to my village. Near Tinsukia. Far away.

In-in-in you must go.’

‘Mine is near…’

‘Yes…next time’ I replied, distractedly…flipping through a magazine

Not paying heed to what I read nor what was said

And they slipped into their dialect over my head

The dryer and the brush danced a tango over my tresses,

gently tugging, coercing them to lose their coils

In minutes, I am transformed from Medusa to Madonna

We both smile.

‘I like curly’ she says

‘I like straight’ I laugh.

**

The last time I pushed past the tinkling door,

There were unfamiliar faces in the passageway

A girl peeped out – the sweet attendant whose name I hadn’t bothered to ask

smiled and said, ‘Rowena not come regular. She got baby’

‘And Veronica?’

‘She left’

‘Oh.’

‘What you want?’

‘I need a trim and straightening’

‘Full trim?’

‘No, just split ends’

And a new friendship had been forged

‘What’s your name?’ I ask

‘Asha’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Assam’

All the other girls giggle and chatter

‘Oh I’ve been to Assam…

‘Haan? Kahaan?’

A wave of déjà vu washes over the room

And the echoes are heard again…

‘Guwahati, Hajo, Sualkuchi, Majuli, Tezpur, Jorhat, Sibsagar, Dibrugarh, Kaziranga, Nameri, Manas…’

Her eyes widen and shine.

‘Agli baar, hamare gaon aaiye’ (Next time, come to my village)

‘Zaroor, next time…’ I pick up a magazine.

**

Now I live in the north with my heart snug in the south

Like a creature who inhales in one city

And exhales in another

I colour my hair in Mumbai

And cut it in Bangalore

**

The next time I swing past the tinkling salon door

There will be no one there I know

They would have left with bags of fear and shattered dreams

I want to stand up and yell

‘Stop the train. I apologize for our collective failure, I wish to make amends

And I don’t remember the names of your villages’

But the train has left, the earth has broken,

We mourn in silence

Our split-ends..

 

Priya Ganapathy is an independent writer, anchor & voice-over driven by wanderlust and words. In an earlier avatar, she was creator of iconic radio stars, Lingo Leela & Sister Stella, with a media career meandering through print, radio, TV, film, internet and theatre. Priya has contributed widely to books, articles and columns in leading newspapers and magazines. As part of Red Scarab she seeks open roads and adventure. Read about it at http://redscarabtravelandmedia.wordpress.com/