It takes about two-to-three weeks for the signs to return. I stare in the mirror, my eyes catching on wayward hairs that have suddenly sprouted, their growth pushing the boundaries of my natural brow shape. It is time to return to Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa to get my eyebrows done.
I have gotten my eyebrows done since I was 12 years old. I’d been ridiculed in grade school due to the natural thickness of my eyebrows and the prominence of my body hair. I was an Indian girl from a small, predominantly-white Midwestern town, and my features, which were characteristics inherent to South Asian people, were alien to my white peers. I begged my mother to help me find a reprieve to the humiliation I felt, and so she took me to get my eyebrows done by Sonal Aunty — a short, serious woman who did the eyebrows of all the aunties in town. (She is not related to me, but it is an Indian custom and tradition to call the women elder to you “aunty” as a sign of respect.) I remember sitting in a dining room chair, my neck angled awkwardly as I gripped my mother’s hand until my knuckles turned white. When Sonal Aunty began her task of cleaning up years of unruly growth around and in between my eyebrows, I squeezed my eyes tight and felt tears stream down my face, aware of every tug, every extraction as the thin white thread pinched the hairs out of their follicles. It was almost too much to bear. Almost.
After she was done, I opened my eyes to the bright light, blinking my excess tears away, and gazed in the mirror. I almost didn’t recognize my reflection; Sonal Aunty took a feature that I was embarrassed of and turned them into something unrecognizable: beautiful black arches that held the world — my world — in their shape. I was not unruly or dirty; instead, I was beautiful and majestic. I was a homage to all the women who came before me and all the women who will come after. It was as if I had reclaimed a part of myself that I was once ashamed of, finally empowering me to be proud of the qualities that made me me, including the pantheon of South Asian women I belonged to. At 12 years old, I had experienced a transformative moment that forever changed my life.
Visiting Sonal Aunty from then on became routine, but I didn’t necessarily like getting my eyebrows done. In fact, it is truly one of the most painful sensations I have ever experienced; it is as if time slows down and every second I sit in the chair, my fingers pulling the skin around my eyes taut as the thread unrelentingly assails my hairs, feels like eternity. No, I hate getting my eyebrows done. The moment when she releases me from peril is salvation: respite after an excruciating 10 minutes. My favorite part of the experience is when I get to sit up and look at myself in the mirror. I relish my newfound confidence in my face, my features, my beauty as I observe her handiwork. It never fails to take my breath away how in 10 minutes, I am transformed. When my eyebrows are done, the skin around them void of any stray hairs, I find that I can finally fully appreciate myself. Their clean and concise shape ties all of my facial features together, creating a cohesive map of the country I belong to. I feel whole again, a congruous summation of the lineages I have come from.
Sonal Aunty and I have a connection that is intimate, sacred even. I trust her to take care of my most defining feature and she has never once failed me in the eight years I’ve known her. I was with her when she began doing eyebrows in her house, then a corner in the pharmacy and finally, when she opened her own brow salon in our local hair salon. Sonal Aunty knows me more intimately than many of my actual family members, most of whom — grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins — live an ocean away on another continent. Instead of feeling a connection to my history, my lineage, my ancestry — something grander than myself — I feel like an island, alone with only the blue sky to keep me company. I have my mother, whom I love and treasure very much, but aside from her and my sister, I am not tethered to anyone. That loss never fails to take my breath away, never fails to make me feel like I’m going to fall through this country. I have had to build an extended family through the people in my community and Sonal Aunty has been a vital part of that.
I visited Sonal Aunty for the last time the day before I left for college. As she worked the thread, meticulously plucking every wayward hair, she asked me about school. Was I excited? Had I met my roommate? When were my classes going to start? It felt like a normal session answering questions while trying to ignore my growing discomfort, a routine that has become comforting to me. But I was troubled by unease as she continued to work, adding novelty to something once familiar; I wondered where, or, more importantly, how would I get my eyebrows done in Ann Arbor?
It is common to feel anxious about leaving our families and making a new life for ourselves when we first arrive at college. We worry about making new friends, finding our way around campus and figuring out how to best operate by ourselves for maybe the first time in our lives. The weeks before my move-in date were plagued by constant butterflies in my stomach and knots in my chest as I grappled with my nervousness and excitement. So, in all my worries, I was too preoccupied to find a new place to get my eyebrows done. Sonal Aunty and I had formed a relationship built on my trust in her to handle my eyebrows with care; it is hard to gain that trust with other people because the fear of a possible mistake on such a crucial aspect of my appearance hindered any risk I might take in finding another person to execute the task I find so important. As a result, I would only get my eyebrows done when I came home for break during my freshman year of college. My eyebrow hairs would grow at an alarmingly fast rate in between, getting the longest and unruliest they’ve been in years. I hated looking at my eyebrows in the mirror, frustrated by their growth and desperate to get back to Sonal Aunty.
Vowing to myself that my second year of school would not be like the first, I had my mom take me to Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa when she came to visit me in September. I had heard through the grapevine that Mansha’s was the best eyebrow place in Ann Arbor, but I was still nervous to try out a new stylist. My biggest fear was that Mansha’s would thin my naturally thick eyebrows. But when I aired this concern to Kitty Aunty, the lady who would be doing my eyebrows, she immediately comforted me and said that they don’t thin eyebrows at this salon. Relieved, I sank back into the chair, gripping my mother’s hand, ready for Kitty Aunty to begin.
When you share a cultural connection, you tend to skip the novelty of first meetings and introductions. Instead, it felt like being back with Sonal Aunty. Kitty Aunty asked how my classes were going, what year of school I was in and why I hadn’t visited her until my sophomore year. I answered her questions as she worked the harsh thread, making my chest ache a little as its discomfort reminded me of my routine with Sonal Aunty. I felt like I had known Kitty Aunty for ages, despite it being my first time meeting her. I feel a kinship between Indian people, one that lies in a shared culture and country. I feel like I know an aunty in the ways that matter, even if I may not know them in the true sense of the word. I see my own essence in the hues of their irises.
This kinship is underscored by the languages we all share and speak. My second language is Hindi, and I consider it my mother tongue, even though I am not fully fluent, because it is my mother’s tongue. Hindi captures my essence, a half to my whole, making it quintessential to my identity. When I arrived in Ann Arbor, I found my grasp on the language slipping through my fingers. Without my home environment to practice it, words and phrases began to escape my head and soon, speaking a sentence that I would normally not give a second thought took me ages to figure out; the grammar, the vocabulary and my confidence all eluded me when I attempted to converse in Hindi. But when I visit Mansha’s, they speak to me in Hindi and give me the opportunity to connect me to my family, my culture, my roots. Speaking in Hindi reminds me of my other half, the one I so readily forget as I immerse myself in other aspects of American college life. Even when I hear the South Asian languages I may not understand, they comfort me because their tone, sounds and accents remind me of home. This shared identity allows those of us an ocean away from our roots a chance to experience that feeling of family that many of us so acutely lack.
Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa has not only increased my confidence but also allowed me to find community in a place where I hadn’t expected. Being there makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself. Just as Sonal Aunty is a part of the family I’ve built back home, Mansha’s Salon and Day Spa, with all the wonderful women that work there, is a part of the family that I am beginning to build in Ann Arbor.
Statement Columnist Ananya Gera can be reached at agera@umich.edu.