Pride and Pedicures
Posted inPeople

Pride and Pedicures

Beauty parlours in small-town India were a refuge for women, where they walked in and shed everything, from their clothes to centuries of inhibition. But the advent of big, branded salons has encroached upon that safe space.
The Girl Without the Red Lipstick: Why I Keep Saying No To Make-Up
Posted inGender

The Girl Without the Red Lipstick: Why I Keep Saying No To Make-Up

As our bodies began to transform when we turned teens, the girls in my class started to get little makeovers. Many started waxing, some got their noses pierced, and almost everyone started applying kajal and lip balm. I resisted them all, convinced that giving in to make-up would suggest that I wasn’t enough the way I was; that I needed fixing to fit in.