Nine Yard Sarees, page 7
The golden hour light sears into Vani’s skin. It stings, like the faint memory of alcohol swabs on open wounds. But she is a trained expert and does not react; with 15 years of unsolicited experience under her belt, it does not strike her as anything out of the ordinary. Still, there is something slightly off-putting about Mira’s gaze. She seems to see beauty in this, and takes pleasure in romanticising discomfort, even agony because she is at liberty to. Because she gets to be the bystander and construct a narrative out of someone else’s struggle. Vani’s struggle. Wanting to disrupt that complacency somehow, Vani grimaces, quite on purpose. And it garners the exact reaction she was hoping for—alarm, even a faint trace of guilt in the way Mira’s voice quivers. It is satisfying to say the least. To make others feel bad for not paying attention to her pain. Still, the photographer is taking her portraits for free. So, she does not push her act too far.
Then, the tables turn. “When were you first diagnosed? I hadn’t noticed it at all during the wedding back then.”
Vani tries not to sigh. It exhausts her to have to retell the story. Because it is a story that is still living itself out through her skin. One that is sometimes predictable, and other times vengeful. But Mira’s iPhone has been recording their conversation since the start of the session; she will transcribe the audio into captions for the photo series. It is the thought of being orally documented that compels Vani to speak. “I was 9. It was after a trip to Australia. The weather was too dry. Triggered its onset.”
“Nine seems to be a year of revelations, huh?”
Neither of them smiles at that. Is Mira seriously comparing her discovery of the film camera to her psoriasis diagnosis, Vani wonders.
Beside herself, Vani continues. “At the wedding, I covered it up with foundation. Didn’t want the aunties commenting, you know? My aunt always says it’s my karma to have psoriasis.”
Mira’s jaw drops. Good, Vani thinks. “What a bitch. Do people actually say that to you? To your face? Karma—what a load of BS.”
For the sake of her composure, Vani leaves out how Periyamma once claimed that the people who died in the Boxing Day tsunami must have incurred “bad karma” in their past lives to die so tragically. Instead, she says, “You don’t even know the half of it. This is what you get for having orthodox relatives.”
Mira is considerate enough to offer an apologetic smile before she instructs, “Look into the camera.”
The second and third shots are taken. Thunderous, unsettling.
It was at Kausalya’s wedding that Vani first met Mira Elangovan.
No doubt, the Indian circle in Singapore ran small. At least for those in her age group. Everyone knew everyone else by one, at most two degrees. Someone’s primary school friend’s ex-boyfriend: a known abuser with a preference for chokeholds. Someone else’s cousin’s wife: made it to the second round of the 2013 Miss Singapore Universe.
Even Mira and her were only separated by a single degree: Vani’s first cousin Keerthana. Keerthana had been Mira’s senior in Junior College. The pair had crossed paths during their brief stint at TLDDS—Tamil Literary, Drama and Debate Society—that they had both been automatically signed up for by simple virtue of being the few Tamils at their school. While Keerthana and Vani were family friends with Kausalya, Mira had been secondary school classmates with the groom Deepak and remained close friends with him long after.
Right at the back of the Perumal wedding hall, the sequins on Vani’s champagne gold saree and the hem of Mira’s baby blue lehenga sleeve got tangled. Keerthana laughingly rushed to the then-strangers’ rescue, gingerly separating the intertwined threads and their bodies, before introducing them to each other. Between exchanging praises for the stunning bride and commenting on the swelling crowd that surely violated the approved occupancy load, Vani learned that Mira was five years older than her, though she did not look it, and was pursuing photography as a career. In fact, Mira had brought along a DSLR to snap candid pictures of the night—“He didn’t ask but I wanted to. At least he won’t have to just rely on the official photographer, you know? Sometimes they take forever to get back with the pictures.” That night, because enough foundation and concealer had been caked onto Vani’s facial scars, she allowed Mira one picture: of the two cousins smiling straight at the camera.
Vani’s words prompt Mira to seek a slight change of scenery.
Long-stalked sunflowers drip water onto the hardwood floors as Mira pulls them out of the glass vase she had arranged them in that morning. They were from the neighbourhood florist, a sweet Chinese lady named Melody who runs a modest shop out of large Styrofoam boxes and a single commercial cooler. While her prices are far from cheap, her flowers are full of life, in a way most local florists’ are not. Sunflowers are meant to be yellow, not sallow after all. Besides, Mira felt the need to lend her support since the florist had been her first subject for the series—Melody has a faint green birthmark across her right cheek that resembles a thick brushstroke, one that sometimes disappears under heavy foundation. (“I use MAC only. Coverage like cement.”)
“The flowers are dripping.” Vani points out, matter of fact.
“If you don’t mind, I would like you to hold them.”
Vani frowns, but she thankfully does not question her photographic vision. She takes the wet stalks from Mira’s hands, holds them close to her chest, and tilts her head to watch droplets of water slowly fall and seep into her outstretched jean clad legs. “Why sunflowers?”
“They reminded me of you.” Mira pauses, floored by her own honesty, before she corrects herself. “Well, the dress you were wearing the other day was yellow.”
Vani raises her brows, spot creasing. She seems clearly surprised that Mira remembers; she averts her eyes to the sunflowers instead. “So, how should I pose with this?”
Mira wipes her hands down the side of her dark jeans, then lifts the Pentax again, relieving the strain on her neck. She walks around Vani, climbs onto a plastic stool, then anchors her shoulder against the wall for stability. “Look up at me.”
“I hope it doesn’t look like I’ve peed myself. Don’t need another reason to look bad on camera.” Vani self-consciously jokes, perhaps spooked by the proximity of the lens, but she, again, does as she is told.
In the viewfinder, the bitten moon shares light with the fresh sunflowers, petals wet and supple. And beside them emerge Vani’s eyes, ashine with muted uncertainty. Besotted with what she is seeing, Mira does not hesitate when she shoots the fourth and fifth.
“Perfect.”
After Kausalya’s wedding, it was two years before Vani heard about Mira again. Out of nowhere, Keerthana sent Vani posts from Mira’s public Instagram account and rambled on about how she had become an “overnight social media superstar after working with an up-and-coming South Korean idol group on their album jacket”. Indeed, Mira was now based in New York, and dabbled in beauty and street photography on a scale international enough to make her somewhat of an influencer (if her follower count was anything to go by).
Maybe that was why Vani stopped in her tracks for Mira just a week after that, along a lane behind the Singapore Art Museum.
And it seemed Mira recognised her too. “Vani!”
For a moment, Vani had found herself quite distracted by Mira, who seemed worlds apart from the girl in the baby blue traditional ensemble she’d once spoken to. The lanky woman’s deep-set eyes were smoked in dusky matte eyeshadow and she was showing off her smooth, lean body in a black spaghetti strap top that had been tucked into high-waisted jeans artfully ripped over the knees. Mira was alluringly intimidating now, perhaps an aura earned from hard work and success. After exchanging some pleasantries and briefly discussing Kausalya’s pregnancy, Mira asked if she had five minutes to spare.
“Well, I’m in a bit of a rush. I am meeting a friend at SAM.” That was only partially true. There was still an hour left. But keeping people at arm’s length had long been Vani’s preferred mode of social engagement. It was a hard habit to break. Or maybe, a good one to keep—depends on who was concerned.
Mira’s eyes lit up. “Okay I’ll make it quick! I am mostly based in New York now but I’m back in Singapore for a month to visit family. And I am working on a new photo series.”
What did that have to do with Vani? There was no way she was about to say yes to a random photoshoot on the streets of Bras Basah, if that was what this was about. She hated being photographed in the first place.
“... The working title is ‘Uncharted Skin’. I have been photographing beauty portraits of women with unconventional skin types.”
As articulate as Mira was, Vani felt queasy. Something unpleasant began rising up her throat. Maybe it was the two-day-old sambar she had reheated for lunch. Or maybe it was her anxiety again. She folded her arms across her chest to hold in whatever it was.
“... I wanted to feature, y’know, real people. Not the airbrushed models we always see.”
Real people. Unconventional skin types. All those buzz words made Vani feel as if she was reading a pseudo-intellectual post off Tumblr. The audacity of it too when Mira was a very real person with unblemished and naturally bronze skin. Besides, who got to decide what was or was not conventional in the first place?
Vani interjected before she could think twice. “Well, 1–2 percent of Singaporeans have my condition. And if you add up the numbers from other skin conditions, we may very well be the standard, not the exception.”
Mira nodded excitedly, as if thoroughly validated by the interjection, which only confused Vani more. “That’s precisely my point! It’s only unconventional because beauty photography has not represented real bodies and real conditions for the longest time.”
There she went again. Real bodies. Real conditions. The word “real” itself sounding more unreal with each repetition.
“I know it’s a lot to digest right now. But if you don’t mind, could I take a sample shot of you? Using my phone? So, I could show you what my vision might be like?”
Vani blinked, unsure.
There was once she’d gone for a facial at a reputed spa. But the instant the therapist pushed past her fringe and noticed the large psoriasis spot above her eyebrow that probably looked worse under the incriminating white light, Vani regretted her late-night Groupon purchase. Within a minute, she was reviewed by a senior therapist and coerced into being photographed using an iPad should something go awry. For the rest of the 90-minute session, Vani fisted the bedsheets and tried not to disintegrate from the anxiety of those awful pictures of her, and her skin being made an example of: “What To Do If Your Client Has Psoriasis As Bad As This?” But in the end, she remained silent. She’d gotten a $200-service at just $30—discount hunters surely could not afford to be picky, could they? To ask for the photographs to be deleted would have meant acknowledging out loud that they existed in the first place; if she had, the session might have prematurely ended with the therapist having to clean up her vomit.
“It’s completely fine,” Mira says. “If you don’t want that. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have put you on the spot. I just thought you’d be perfect for the series. I just really wanted to shed light on how we create ideas about beauty and how unfair it is to those who aren’t represented enough or at all.”
Vani exhaled. Loud, deep. Was this not what she had always wanted? Acknowledgement? Validation? That too from a successful photographer who was trying to include her, and people like her within the lens of beauty. Someone as attractive as Mira who had no reason to find Vani beautiful. Still, the bile roiled in her gut. Like soaking wet laundry tumbling in a malfunctioning dryer. The only way to put a pause on the tumble was to regain a semblance of control. “Fine. But on one condition. You take that sample shot on my phone,” she emphasised. “Only mine.”
Mira’s eyes widened. Then she nodded with an impressed smile that led up to her dimples. “You sure know how to negotiate. Deal.”
The sunflowers are dunked back into the vase, some petals lost to the ground in the process. Mira crouches and starts to sweep the torn yellows into her palm, as the Pentax swings and collides with her chest. That should have hurt, a mammoth metal slamming into her already small breasts. But in the heart of utmost concentration, she pays no heed; she has an idea.
It is a habit of hers to fixate on anything that has the potential for brilliance, because she knows better than to let her mind trail off; she has lost too many good ideas that way. Sure, teachers often labelled her in school report cards as dreamy, even lofty. But look where that has gotten her.
Mira kneels before Vani and proffers her palm. “You don’t have skin allergies to sunflower petals, do you?”
Vani shakes her head.
With the careful attention of priests anointing a statue of a Hindu goddess, Mira gently presses the longest, least torn petal she can find over the length of Vani’s left brow. Miraculously, it is a perfect fit. A soft, smooth brush of yellow over her dark, brooding eye.
Vani begins to chuckle, at first to herself, then out loud. “I feel stupid.”
“Don’t worry—it’s avant garde. Fashion is all about risk, pushing boundaries. Even celebrities take risks when they shoot covers. It’s to keep things interesting.”
“Is that so?” Vani asks slightly teasing but slightly challenging as well. “Strange way of taking risks.”
If Mira were to care more, she would have been more irked by the lack of confidence Vani has in her, a highly sought-after international photographer. But maybe this has more to do with Vani’s insecurity about herself, she rationalises.
The other petal Mira had chosen is not long enough, so she adjusts the angle of Vani’s hair to cover her overarched, overextended brow. There she is, an otherworldly petalled creature with a bitten moon glowing on her forehead. A stunning subject for film.
From the front, the sixth. From above, the seventh. From the other corner of the room, with the golden hour diminishing, as if the creature is waiting to pounce, the eighth. But no creature moves. It is instead Vani who breaks the silence.
“I thought this photoshoot was about capturing real people.”
The words utter themselves, really. Vani only wills them in her mind. But somehow, her tongue moves quicker than her inhibitions. “Always so defensive.” Her mother usually chides whenever she retorts any snide remarks about her skin. She knows the audio recorder is still running somewhere in this room, but her need to vent, to call out, to be angry, takes over her.
“It shouldn’t be about me posing with pretty things like sunflowers and sunlight in the hopes of, I don’t know, shrouding what I really look like. What’s so unconventional about me now?” She reaches for her face and plucks out the audacious petals with as much dramatic frustration as she can. She is not sure if she has achieved her intended effect though; the petals weakly flutter to the ground. “I literally look like every other girl in these beauty shots. Despite the fact that I’m not. That’s not the truth, is it? You can’t bear to look at me for the way I am. So, you’re just hiding everything that makes me ‘me’.”
In the opposite corner of the room, Mira descends into a cross-legged position on the floor and frees her neck from the weight of her camera. An obnoxiously large, over-the-top camera, as far as Vani is concerned. For a while, the photographer just sits, idly fiddling with her instrument as she gazes over at her, surveying her very existence from that distance.
“You’re... something else,” is the first thing Mira mutters when she breaks her silence. Her tone is calm, even mildly amused. But it is not particularly mean either; that unnerves Vani. “I take your portraits for free, and your immediate instinct from start to finish has been to pick it apart. Even before seeing the final shots. Even before I’ve seen the final shots.” Then, she cracks a lopsided smile. “Do you have anything else you’re unhappy about?” She tilts her head. “How else have I failed?” She asks in a tone that is awkwardly sincere and mocking.
That surely is not the response Vani had imagined. She had wanted Mira to cower a little in shame, to look over at her, as if a cat had caught her tongue, before apologising, or something close to it. But this? The nerve of her. Of course, she is like every other big shot photographer there is, except she is not white, or old, or male even. All those gender essentialists who claim women are more empathetic than men must have never met someone like Mira who seems to defy those expectations, good and bad. Yet, it is Vani who finds herself cowering and it makes her skin itch in anger, the stress threatening a psoriasis flare-up. Why is she internalising shame that belongs over someone else’s head? Why is she always the only one so ashamed?
“You know, you’re not the one who is doing me a favour,” she manages to say before something ruptures within her. She looks up, hoping whatever that has welled in her eyes will remain within. She does not want to validate anyone with her tears. “I’m the one doing you a favour.”
Something comes over Mira as she watches Vani gradually, reluctantly break down. As tears roll down her cheeks, her face crumples into a grimace and she begins to shake from a long-unspoken fury.
Mira’s body begins to move without her conscious volition, as if possessed by the sight.
One hand grips the camera. In immediate succession, the index finger of the other moves. And from within the old camera, the mechanical soldiers launch their artillery: the ninth, the ninth! Mira feels euphoric. Even though she knows she should not have done it, there was the truth Vani wanted, embossed into emulsion. The monumental truth that no one could ever erase for the frames are now spent.
