Ash face-powder

I would rather read a book or sleep than go to a party. Any party is but a glamour war for wannabe aunties. I may come out as a procrastinating lazy bum, because any number of times anyone would urge me to accompany them to a party I would put it of for that elusive “next time”.

I really pity this class of less educated women who were pretty faces in their heyday and had been married of to well educated, fat salaried men, the metaphorical “good catch”. These women feel horribly out of place when they are first exposed to this drink guzzling, beauty parlor frequenting, well groomed designer wear flashing breed. Soon however they are taken up in this dream torrent and they transform into beings they are not.

They watch BBC when their husbands are at work to perfect their English accents, they visit grooming classes to know the table manners and they dab on make-up when their husband casually asks them to accompany them praying they would stop to give an approving nod to the arm-candy they have dolled themselves into.

When they return to their parents, mostly in small towns they cannot be comfortable any longer without the AC neither can they understand what is the huge attraction their children have in the Playstation. They have left back the Rabindrasangeet and they pretend to enjoy the Bach their husband’s enjoy and cannot understand what Iron Maiden is all about. They cannot get their hands on a piece by Jibananda and they’d rather not read the Keats on the shelf.

So many families live their lives in such pretensions. And at night when the lights go off and she wipes off her make-up looking into the mirror in the dark as the tired husband sleeps on the bed she might hum a song and have her own moment, but just that and no more.