Women are very beauty conscious I have heard, but to what extent I never knew. All my life, books were my only companion apart from some male friends. So I never thought about being beautiful or the need to go to a beauty parlour for that.

My friends, who are guys, were better informed than me about these things. “Why don’t you get a facial and waxing done?” asked a friend of mine (needless to say, a guy). I must have been an alien to him since these jargons were like Greek and Latin to me.

Now that I was forced into this conversation I thought I should get these things done before getting more embarrassed. Instead of getting beautiful, my skin got burnt due to over heating of the semi-molten liquid that they applied on me for waxing. Hence, I decided that it was not my cup of tea and never entered a parlour again.

Nevertheless, more beauty tips flowed into my ears every time we met. “Hey, you have an uneven skin complexion”, said another friend who met me after a long time. “Go to a good place this time and don’t get burnt like a chicken”, he said. Hoping to put an end to all these comments, I went online to check some deals in a couple of cosmetic skin clinics (as I was already traumatised with parlours). I found one and gathering courage, I went there. The dermatologist looked at me and said that I have a normal skin tone which is good and a little uneven skin complexion which can be treated in two or three sessions. I asked for their charges guessing that it would at least be a four digit figure per session.

The executive in charge of the pricing walked into the room and threw a pleasant smile at me while I was still enjoying the feel of the ambience. She sat opposite me and wrote down the pricing on a sheet of paper and turned it towards me.

Phew! All my excitement and happiness just vanished in a fraction of a second.

Controlling my anxiety and readjusting my facial and body language with a smile, I looked at the five digit amount that flashed across my eyes.

My three months salary was their ‘beauty package’ bill. Just then, my ancestors’ words echoed like lightning. “Beauty is heart deep, not skin deep.”Indeed, I understood that skin deep beauty comes for a very high price whereas the beauty within costs just a smile and I preferred to just smile it off.