Pluck pluck patel...
The wait is over...here goes Pluck Pluck Patel...
It was two months after I landed up in the US of A. For those of you with a faint memory like me, let me tell you as to where I live. I live in Bakersfield, CA. Until two years back I did not know that California's short name or chella peyar was CA. Teachers in school and the innumerous ICWA folks have always told me that CA means Charted Accountant and Charted Accountant means CA. I guess their brain needs some whacking and I am ready to do it. Ahem...coming to the point ! Bakersfield is a city in CA close to LA viz 1 and 1/2 hours from LA. It is predominantly famous for its Oil Factories, Refineries. Before I ventured into exploring Bakersfield, I wanted to visit a beauty parlour. Since I am sure I am writing to an audience who visit parlours for threading, waxing and a hair cut and not for having a bikini wax, you would understand how important it is to trim eyebrows every now and then. A friend of mine Deepa once met me at a parlour. Before I could even ask her highness as to what she intends plucking for the day she said "I am planning to shave my brows. They seem to be growing into an amazon forest." I laughed so much that I spilled the coke on her dress adding to her agony.Well that's another story.
Well I happened to look at the mirrow for the umpteenth time that day (According to one of my Bong friends, Librans have this habit of admiring themselves in the mirror not to talk about the way she admires her belly button everytime) and realised that Deepa was indeed right. It had been 2 months since I visited the parlour and my brows badly needed trimming. The American chicks in one of the Super Markets I visited advised me to shave them. Gosh...I became shit scared. A thought struck me and I divulged the same to the man in my life. My man looked at me and asked me if I was alright? I am sure men keep asking this question too often once they tie the knot. I guess I had gone a lil crazy that day because I asked him if we could drive down to San Francisco to get my brows trimmed.( My friend Dhivya who stays in Santaclara told me once that there are too many Indian Parlours in the city hence it struck me that I need to visit Santaclara) My man must have thought that I had gone mad not that he did not think like that before. He gave me a polite NO for an answer. Poor soul. Little did he realise that he was going to starve during supper for saying NO.
My thoughts drifted to Chennai and Bangalore parlours where I used to spend considerable time for a manicure and a pedicure. How I wish there was a Kanya or a Lakme Salon closeby. There are lots of "Nails and Colors" Salons here but what they do is just do a Manicure and paint your nails and they demand a dirty 15 $ for it:( Aiyo...En kaasu ellaam ippadee dhaan veenaga poganumaa...Sob ! Sob !! I had learned to put up with the thing as my man assured me I looked nice with eyebrows trimmed or not trimmed which kinda soothed me but still I continued to grieve about my state especially in front of a mirror. Thats when my man's friend and his wife joined us at Bakersfield for a weekend. This friend's wife had the same problem (Trust me gals you tend to become beauty conscious before and after wedding for obvious reasons - then you would stop carin about it altogether). She and I took a vow that we would hunt down a parlour sometime soon.
My man meanwhile in an attempt to cheer me up took us to a mall and my eyes fell on the board "Patel's Beauty Salon - Upperlip, Eyebrows threading". What luck! Our joy knew no bounds and we decided to put an end to our beauty predicamentent of the last few days much to the agony of the two men with us who in the 1st place did not know what threading or manicure was...Thats where the heroine of this write up makes her appearance. (Well folks if you had been thinking that I am the heroine or what these bollywood biggies call "Jaan" of the write-up then you are wrong !)
Mrs Patel seemed to be happy to see us and she welcomed us with her hands folder and a big namaste on her lips. I was confused as to whether I had entered the Kodak Photo Studio because she stood in that pose for a very long time that even my hands started aching. Her parlour was a well furnished one with rows of mirrors and seats and everywhere she had hung a Bollywood Actor/Actress photo. I could see photos of Ash in bridal get up, Ash with Mrs Patel's husband (Well thats what she told us), Akshaya Khanna, Kumar Sanu etc. When I entered the shoppe I found 2 Americans looking at these snaps and they were smart enough to recognise Ash thanks to her non-performance in Bride and Prejudice and Mistress of Spices.
Mrs Patel: Namaste ! What can I do for you che? {'che' is the word the Gujjus use at the end of every sentence)
We: Eyebrows threading
Mrs Patel: Can you gimme min che? I got to finish this for this Kalee.
We: Ok.
Mrs Patel was referring to a Black American Woman as Kalee. We were shocked when she said that and decided not to engage in further conversation with her.
The American Woman was not sure about the threading process as she was used to using Wax. Reluctantly she got her eyebrows done while shooting questions to Mrs Patel.I was about to answer one of her questions when Mrs Patel was quick enuf to retort
" Yeh saali goree kya samajthee hai apne apko...bahuth sawaal kar rahee hai (What does this bloody black think of herself, she is asking me so many questions)" with
a smile on her lips. I was shell shocked and told her in Hindi that she was not supposed to be mumbling something like that in a language unfamiliar to the American. Mrs Patel apologised to me and said that she is frustrated with these Americans, blah, blah...
I wanted to leave the place but realised that I was not Miss Martin Luther King Jr hence got my brows trimmed and my friend got hers and we left the place asap.Oops I forgot to tell you about what she did while trimming my brows. She asked my friend to hold my forehead for her on the pretext that all her assistants had left for the day and she needed a lil help to trim my brows to which my friend agreed. Mrs Patel was very MAGNANIMOUS to give us what she called a "Big Che Discount". She said that she would charge us for just one trimming. Recently she gave us crap like if we go to her parlour once in 2 weeks for trimming, she would charge us just 8$ but if we frequent her parlour after a month or so she would charge us 12$ as she had to spend 5 minutes of extra time on us. Wow...this is what I call EXTORTION OF FIRST DEGREE...
Recently I happened to read an article about her in a local newspaper. The gist of it was like :
"New Weapon of Battle against bushy eyebrows...
Being beautiful is every femme's desire and American Women are no exception. Gone are the days when women inflict themselves to pain by shaving their brows and upper lip. Mrs Patel from India has come up with a solution to end their woes as she has come up with something called "THREADING" in which she uses thread to pluck unwanted hair from face. She has decided to recommend this to leading beautiful salons in the world " Mrs Patel is very happy that her parlour is thronged with women around 100-200 per day who leave the parlour satisfied with the new INVENTION :)"
Hmm...LADY LUCK IS SMILING ON YOU, You have become a celebrity...or I should say...an inventor :p
So keep going...Mrs Patel...or I should say...PLUCK PLUCK PATEL !!!
It was two months after I landed up in the US of A. For those of you with a faint memory like me, let me tell you as to where I live. I live in Bakersfield, CA. Until two years back I did not know that California's short name or chella peyar was CA. Teachers in school and the innumerous ICWA folks have always told me that CA means Charted Accountant and Charted Accountant means CA. I guess their brain needs some whacking and I am ready to do it. Ahem...coming to the point ! Bakersfield is a city in CA close to LA viz 1 and 1/2 hours from LA. It is predominantly famous for its Oil Factories, Refineries. Before I ventured into exploring Bakersfield, I wanted to visit a beauty parlour. Since I am sure I am writing to an audience who visit parlours for threading, waxing and a hair cut and not for having a bikini wax, you would understand how important it is to trim eyebrows every now and then. A friend of mine Deepa once met me at a parlour. Before I could even ask her highness as to what she intends plucking for the day she said "I am planning to shave my brows. They seem to be growing into an amazon forest." I laughed so much that I spilled the coke on her dress adding to her agony.Well that's another story.
Well I happened to look at the mirrow for the umpteenth time that day (According to one of my Bong friends, Librans have this habit of admiring themselves in the mirror not to talk about the way she admires her belly button everytime) and realised that Deepa was indeed right. It had been 2 months since I visited the parlour and my brows badly needed trimming. The American chicks in one of the Super Markets I visited advised me to shave them. Gosh...I became shit scared. A thought struck me and I divulged the same to the man in my life. My man looked at me and asked me if I was alright? I am sure men keep asking this question too often once they tie the knot. I guess I had gone a lil crazy that day because I asked him if we could drive down to San Francisco to get my brows trimmed.( My friend Dhivya who stays in Santaclara told me once that there are too many Indian Parlours in the city hence it struck me that I need to visit Santaclara) My man must have thought that I had gone mad not that he did not think like that before. He gave me a polite NO for an answer. Poor soul. Little did he realise that he was going to starve during supper for saying NO.
My thoughts drifted to Chennai and Bangalore parlours where I used to spend considerable time for a manicure and a pedicure. How I wish there was a Kanya or a Lakme Salon closeby. There are lots of "Nails and Colors" Salons here but what they do is just do a Manicure and paint your nails and they demand a dirty 15 $ for it:( Aiyo...En kaasu ellaam ippadee dhaan veenaga poganumaa...Sob ! Sob !! I had learned to put up with the thing as my man assured me I looked nice with eyebrows trimmed or not trimmed which kinda soothed me but still I continued to grieve about my state especially in front of a mirror. Thats when my man's friend and his wife joined us at Bakersfield for a weekend. This friend's wife had the same problem (Trust me gals you tend to become beauty conscious before and after wedding for obvious reasons - then you would stop carin about it altogether). She and I took a vow that we would hunt down a parlour sometime soon.
My man meanwhile in an attempt to cheer me up took us to a mall and my eyes fell on the board "Patel's Beauty Salon - Upperlip, Eyebrows threading". What luck! Our joy knew no bounds and we decided to put an end to our beauty predicamentent of the last few days much to the agony of the two men with us who in the 1st place did not know what threading or manicure was...Thats where the heroine of this write up makes her appearance. (Well folks if you had been thinking that I am the heroine or what these bollywood biggies call "Jaan" of the write-up then you are wrong !)
Mrs Patel seemed to be happy to see us and she welcomed us with her hands folder and a big namaste on her lips. I was confused as to whether I had entered the Kodak Photo Studio because she stood in that pose for a very long time that even my hands started aching. Her parlour was a well furnished one with rows of mirrors and seats and everywhere she had hung a Bollywood Actor/Actress photo. I could see photos of Ash in bridal get up, Ash with Mrs Patel's husband (Well thats what she told us), Akshaya Khanna, Kumar Sanu etc. When I entered the shoppe I found 2 Americans looking at these snaps and they were smart enough to recognise Ash thanks to her non-performance in Bride and Prejudice and Mistress of Spices.
Mrs Patel: Namaste ! What can I do for you che? {'che' is the word the Gujjus use at the end of every sentence)
We: Eyebrows threading
Mrs Patel: Can you gimme min che? I got to finish this for this Kalee.
We: Ok.
Mrs Patel was referring to a Black American Woman as Kalee. We were shocked when she said that and decided not to engage in further conversation with her.
The American Woman was not sure about the threading process as she was used to using Wax. Reluctantly she got her eyebrows done while shooting questions to Mrs Patel.I was about to answer one of her questions when Mrs Patel was quick enuf to retort
" Yeh saali goree kya samajthee hai apne apko...bahuth sawaal kar rahee hai (What does this bloody black think of herself, she is asking me so many questions)" with
a smile on her lips. I was shell shocked and told her in Hindi that she was not supposed to be mumbling something like that in a language unfamiliar to the American. Mrs Patel apologised to me and said that she is frustrated with these Americans, blah, blah...
I wanted to leave the place but realised that I was not Miss Martin Luther King Jr hence got my brows trimmed and my friend got hers and we left the place asap.Oops I forgot to tell you about what she did while trimming my brows. She asked my friend to hold my forehead for her on the pretext that all her assistants had left for the day and she needed a lil help to trim my brows to which my friend agreed. Mrs Patel was very MAGNANIMOUS to give us what she called a "Big Che Discount". She said that she would charge us for just one trimming. Recently she gave us crap like if we go to her parlour once in 2 weeks for trimming, she would charge us just 8$ but if we frequent her parlour after a month or so she would charge us 12$ as she had to spend 5 minutes of extra time on us. Wow...this is what I call EXTORTION OF FIRST DEGREE...
Recently I happened to read an article about her in a local newspaper. The gist of it was like :
"New Weapon of Battle against bushy eyebrows...
Being beautiful is every femme's desire and American Women are no exception. Gone are the days when women inflict themselves to pain by shaving their brows and upper lip. Mrs Patel from India has come up with a solution to end their woes as she has come up with something called "THREADING" in which she uses thread to pluck unwanted hair from face. She has decided to recommend this to leading beautiful salons in the world " Mrs Patel is very happy that her parlour is thronged with women around 100-200 per day who leave the parlour satisfied with the new INVENTION :)"
Hmm...LADY LUCK IS SMILING ON YOU, You have become a celebrity...or I should say...an inventor :p
So keep going...Mrs Patel...or I should say...PLUCK PLUCK PATEL !!!
posted by Ananya S P at 12:20 PM
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