M A I N   N E W S

Beauticians make inroads into villages
Sarbjit Singh
Tribune News Service

Bathinda:
Beauticians have started making inroads into the rural areas of Punjab.

Beauty parlours have come up even in the remotest areas of a district like Bathinda, otherwise known for its low female literacy rate and social backwardness. The idea that looking beautiful does matter has started appealing to village girls.

In the past one decade, Punjab’s big cities and towns saw the mushroom growth of beauty parlours. But in the rural areas it is the latest phenomenon. In fact, in the urban areas, the owners of beauty parlours are minting money. These parlours become a good source of employment for women. Women from the top strata of society are also running such parlours, though these cater only to the well-off.

Compared to the urban areas, those running beauty parlours in the rural areas earn very little, says Sarabjit Kaur, who has set up a parlour in Dhapali village, near Rampuraphul in Bathinda district. She got her training from a beauty parlour at Quila Chowk in Patiala and set up the business in the village where she is married to a technician employed in the thermal plant at Lehra Mohabbat.

“Though girls in villages have formed the habit of going to beauty parlours, their paying capacity is meagre”, says Sarabjit Kaur with disappointment. “You see when I was getting training in Patiala, women there used to pay in thousands but here one often has to do the job on credit”, she adds.

There are three beauty parlours in Dhapali village. One of these is run by Neeru. Her husband is a shopkeeper. She never leaves her premises to do the work. She attends to only those girls who come to her residence for this purpose. “In villages, social relations are different. Sometimes, one has to do a make-up job without charging a single penny because of close relations with the family of the girl concerned”, says Neeru’s father.

One marked difference between parlours in the urban and rural areas is the “setting”.

What do rural girls prefer as far as make-up is concerned? They go in for a simple make-up. Facials, threading, bleaching, manicure, hair dressing and putting of mehndi in a tasteful manner on the hands are common now. However, because of their low paying capacity, they avoid costly creams, nail polish etc.