Beauty parlours in Varanasi are quietly brewing a feminist revolution—one pedicure at a time
Indu Khatri knows that if a woman wants to take advantage of downtime, he is long before she can relax and relax. “A man lives his life freely because he does it according to his terms. A woman must listen to her father, her brother and her husband, never for herself, “she said, while we sip the tea of Little Kulhads in Palak Beauty Parlour, nestled on the first floor of a three-story residential building in Varanasi. “As women working, we must have the freedom to wake up at nine in the morning if we want it and not cook if we don’t want it. Left to our own devices, our husbands and our parents-in-law will never want us to come out. »»
She is accompanied by her older sister-in-law, Rekha Khatri, who is put on the eyebrows two feet from us. Less than 24 hours ago, Indu lost her other sister-in-law to sudden cardiac arrest. Before talking to him, the owner of the Palak beauty salon, Savita Singh, informed me that “Indu-ji is sad behind the smiling face”.
Indu shares what she feels about women who work in northern India because it is one. After seven years of visit by Palak Beauty Parlour as a customer and binding with Singh, they recently pooled a life of personal savings to open a second living room together. “Seven years ago, I started my trip to the house of the house of my parents-in-law in Varanasi with a sustained mirror against the wall and a small plastic chair,” explains Singh. “Whenever we had guests, we ask them to adapt to the other room. My husband insisted that my little beauty salon was not disturbed.
