(Written in character as Lakshmi Shastri)
My wealthiest client, Parvati, who was quick to wonder how I would know what a Turkish fig looked like, is no less curious than the other ladies I serve. They would like to know more about me: a childless, married woman whose husband has abandoned her—an assumption I’ve never contradicted. But these high caste ladies are used to asking questions discreetly, never directly, and I am practiced in the art of never giving them the answer they seek.
A few of them have tried to find out why I, a Brahmin woman whose caste would not have permitted her to touch the feet of ladies, chose the application of henna as a profession. They begin, “Before you came to Jaipur, we’d never seen such fine henna designs,” peering into my eyes with an innocent expression.
If I were to tell them that it was the courtesans of Agra who taught me henna designs from their native cities—Isfahan, Morocco, Marrakesh, Calcutta, Cairo, Kabul—and that within a month of living with them I was placing a Persian peacock inside a Turkish clamshell and turning an Afghan mountain bird into a Moroccan fan on the hips, backs and breasts of their bodies, my ladies would command me to leave their stately homes immediately and never return.
Which means I cannot tell them that courtesans like Hazi and Nazreen were kind to me, when kindness was what I needed most after running from my husband’s abuse. They asked no questions, merely showed me to my room when I told them I could keep their house childless with my contraceptive teas. How I loved the ancient poetry, sweet ghazals and kathak dances of the pleasure women as musicians plucked sitars and drummed their tablas!
Here is what I tell my ladies. Old man Munchi-ji—back home in Utter Pradesh (I never mention the name of my village)—taught me to hold a camel hair brush and paint designs on delicate peepal leaf skeletons. He, who could decorate a milkmaid’s sari with dots no larger than a grain of sand, was patient with me, making me hold my little girl fingers still for long periods of time until I could do the same.
And loathe as I am to mention the pleasure houses of my past, I’m even more reluctant to admit to my Jaipur clientele that my mother-in-law inspired me to create the herbal remedies I administer. Were I to mention my saas, my ladies would be emboldened to ask about the estranged husband I never mention. I choose instead to hide my herbal knowledge in the savories and sweets I feed them during our henna sessions: namkeen seasoned with parsley to inflame desire, dandelion leaf pakoras to ease arthritis pain or wild yam sweetmeats to induce pregnancy.
The ladies don’t complain. In fact, they praise my henna throughout the Pink City for its beneficial effects, attributing their husbands’ lust, their newborn sons, and the ease of their aches and pains to my intricate designs. Little do they realize that Munchi-ji’s insistence on observing every detail helped me to hear what my ladies don’t say aloud: the wistful tone that tells me their husbands don’t come to bed full of lust as they once had; a downcast gaze as they refer to their sister’s growing family; a frown across their brow—the telltale sign that a migraine is blooming. I watch. I listen. I heal.
My ladies say: Only a fool stays in the water and remains an enemy of the crocodile. From them I have learned to live in the water, to thrive in it. I dress as they dress. Speak as they speak. Give them what they most need before they realize they need it.
These are the ways in which I’ve earned my independent life: carefully, slowly. Until the day I put aside my reed and my henna pot, I will keep my past—and the stories of those who made me the woman I am today—to myself.
