To be fair - or not

One of the many, many pieces of drama that made my brother's wedding last month SO MUCH FUN was the fact that the airline I flew home on forgot to put my suitcase on the plane. Which meant my outfit for the sangeet and a large chunk of my makeup was not in the same continent as me for a good 48 hours after I landed.


Which was fine, because I never panic over such things, and I did have a week to scream at the airline before the day of the sangeet. What I needed urgently, however, was makeup. Because even though the sangeet was almost a week away, I had another friend getting married the day after I landed, and a gazillion mini-events that every Indian wedding seems to require.


Now the thing with makeup is that I started using a lot of it only last year.


I tried foundation years ago, when I was much younger. But a, I'm terrible with liquid foundation because I end up spilling it all over, and b, I always felt like a clown whenever I tried putting it, so I stopped very soon. For years, my only make up was eyeliner, mayyybe blush on the rare occasion I was feeling brave, and on even rarer occasions, some lipstick.


Then last year, a friend introduced me to Maybelline's roll on version of foundation, which was relatively easy to apply, and their darkest shade didn't make me feel like such a clown. So I started using this, and felt very proud of myself.


So when I found myself without makeup in India, I headed NewU to see if they had anything similar. And this brings us to why I am writing this post*.


So the roll on type of foundations don't seem to have reached India yet, so I thought, fine, I will be brave and try regular liquid foundation, and hope none of the clothes I do have with me get ruined. But then, when I asked for their darkest shade, I discovered Maybelline has exactly three shades available in India, the darkest of which won't work for me or, to be quite honest, half the women I know in India. And this was true of every brand I asked to see. And when I came close to losing it and asking how they expect me to use these shades because, hello, look at me, a very helpful sales assistant had the bright idea of offering me - wait for it - fairness serum by Garnier. Apparently if you apply fairness serum before a lighter shade of foundation, it works just fine.


To which I said:

Seriously? Seriously? Introduce three ridiculous shades in a market, which won't work for half the women in said market, and then promote "fairness freakin' serum"?!


How have the people outraging over the continuing existence of Fair & Lovely and similar products not started outraging about this yet?!


Screw you, make up companies.

* Oh, like we all didn’t know it takes me ages to get to the point. My thoughts meander, people.

Where by we, we mean I

Let us get announcements out of the way first. There is a wedding in the family this winter. It is not ours, so shoo. We are tremendously excited about it, and so we are willing to indulge people who talk about nothing else on the phone and therefore don't even ask people about what might be happening in their lives. Not that we are complaining or anything.

We might be talking like this a bit because we have been reading Anuja Chauhan's latest book recently.

So anyway, we were in Delhi last week. Mainly for wedding related gatherings, and of course wedding shopping, but also extremely important things like mangoes and bhutta and hair spas. Now six days in Delhi is never ever enough, and when those six days are spent shopping for wedding outfits during the day and working during the night because we have no vacation days and have to beg for time off, it is all very exhausting. Nonetheless, Delhi is Delhi after all. It is... home. Y'know?

Now wedding shopping in Delhi is... interesting. I mean, first of all, let us be clear. Delhi fashions were, are, and always will be way too jhataak for us. So the first line uttered in every shop we entered was invariably:

"bhaiyya shaadi ke suit dikha do, par zara kam jhataak ho toh."

Now the other problem is current fashions. We have been made to understand that Pakistani serials have become very popular in India. Which we are okay with because we gather they are a little less insane than the Indian ones. But as a result, Pakistani styles are the current fashion in India. Which is all well and good, because they're really gorgeous, but can we please agree that anarkalis and shararas and whatnots do not suit every body type? Therefore, the most common conversation we had in this entire shopping process was this:

"Bhaiyya salwar ya churidar ke saath nahi hain?"
"Aaj kal yahi fashion mein hain."
"Aaj kal jo fashion mein hain woh nahi pasand na."

Ufff.

However. The mother and I are extremely efficient, with the result that between Karol Bagh and CP and GK-I, we are done with the wedding shopping, barring one outfit. We did not have the time or energy to go to Chandni Chowk, and Shahpur Jat was wayyyyyyy too jhataak for us - except for one shop that was wayyyyyyy out of our budget. We are a little sad we didn't end up making it to South Extension, because it has been too long since we had the juice and bhel puri there, but the friend who has said she could meet us in South Ex came home the next day, so what is there.

The one outfit that is left is also not completely worrisome, because we know what we want, and the mother will have it done by the time we land back this winter. Accessories need to be picked up locally, and we need to try and find someone who can do some tailoring for us locally, because there was no time to get blouses made for the saris one has chosen, but that and all can be figured out I think.

So, productive week. Even though we didn't get to eat enough foods or meet enough people.

And now we will run to our next meeting.