#7-Delicate Darling Usha

One of my best friends-an epitome of femininity! She was best known as 'delicate darling' as she was everything a real girl ought to be. She was very delicate--she oohed and aahed at the smallest non-existent blemish on her skin, complained of a pain in the first one-third of her little finger( nursed it with ice-cubes and wet cloth)and generally took a lot of time dressing up! It was a fascination for us to watch her dress up, even for such a trivial chore as dinner. Every morning before going to college and every evening afterwards, most of us would line up in front of the huge mirrors at the end of the corridor in 'Narmada' hostel just to see her pamper her face.

Her routine(normal) was like this--she would first stare at herself in the mirror, trying to find newly-formed blemishes(to us, invisible). Then she would try to rub them off with a soft cloth. Then came the special--soap application. We did not have so many lotions, moisturisers, liquid soaps as we have now--but Ush made it a point to buy the best.She would carefully lather up her face and wash off with warm water so carefully that it took almost ten minutes for the entire ritual.Then slowly she'd pat dry her face.She'd then apply talcum powder to every mm of her face, and round it off with another long session of kajal and bindi.A bit more kajal in left eye, a bit less in the right--blow! The ritual would start off again from soap-wash!If the bindi was not round enough, again, and again.
Ush was by no standards a beauty queen,but she was never tired of beautifying herself.Her long hair got the beauty treatment every weekend( even when there was water-shortage)and all her clothes were neat and ironed.
She was always 'sssss'ing, ie complaining that someone shook her hand hard, or that someone patted her back hard. It was always--'ayyo, it's paining'. For her, her bed was too hard, or the chair too straight, the bus too bouncy or the fruit too sour. Her teeth pained, her hands pained, her feet pained and we were generally pained to see her pained!
Oh darling, darling Usha, delicate darling you are!!