Girl’s First Pluck

Girl's First Pluck

After two nights of sickening laddu and luddi dancing,
leaving me feeling like a bag of caster sugar,

My eyebrows are plucked and threaded - ouch!
into a beautiful arch but my eyes are puffy and watering.

And before they ask to wax elsewhere
I shout 'no thanks! I've dealt with that!'

Three layers of skin are stripped with hot steam,
followed by a thick layer of creamy foundation-

a tone lighter than my skin!
Next - a palette of eye shadow arrives like that

in an artist's hand. Now I feel like a canvas
and soon I will look like a peacock,

which is why there is no mirror or I would
simply run out of the shop!

They backcomb my hair into a nest for a dozen birds.
Twenty pins are tucked in tightly to hold up my dupatta,

that covers both arms of our eastern tattoos -
the seductive and intricate henna.

I am placed before a mirror and what do I see
a porcelain doll glowing like a Bollywood Queen!

Cost 2000 rupees! My only worry is how long will it take
to untuck twenty pins, undo the nest of hair,

remove the layers of coloured cream-
can I pay someone to come and do that for me

before we get down to basics?


Nabila Suriya

Nabila Suriya's work transmits the British Asian experience, focusing on identity, religion, language, culture, harmony and tension, love and loss, divorce and feminine issues