The Masseuse

There is a scene in the movie Zwigato, where the wife of the gig-economy worker strapped for money, tries to make ends meet as a personal masseuse. In the hustle-bustle of the big city, she runs after her bus and tries to reach in time for her appointment. Asked to use the service elevator (read: lower class) in a posh building, she is welcomed into the house by a lady arranging her tarot cards. Her daughter, the intended back ache patient, takes one look at her and refuses to get a massage from her citing her sweaty saree-clad condition -- all the while communicating in English. The mother sends the masseuse away lying about the reason for cancellation, pushing some minimal bus fare in her hands.

My thoughts dwindle. A recent memory.

Rushing out from the colorful quiet bylanes, we are suddenly greeted by bright lights, flashy souvenir shops and scantily-clad white people. Ah, the tourist-infested beach town of Goa is here. Cash exchanges hands and we grab a juicy parking spot by the entrance of the resto-shack. A beautiful thatched place on sticks with round hanging lanterns, and the muted sound of distant ocean waves. The evening is just getting started with a trickle of customers arriving.

We're seated and place our orders for some Kingfishers and a Kalakhatta beerita. As we chat animatedly, a woman with a dark complexion, in oil slick hair neatly tied in a braid, gold earrings, necklace and a saree covered in a maroon uniform stops by the table. I barely register her then, and my friends send her off after a few No-thank-yous.

The band starts playing a mix of American and Bollywood fusion songs and we lighten up. The violinist-cum-singer is splendidly serenading the crowd to some unexpected tunes. Nursing my drink, I glance away at a neighboring table where the same woman is now sitting down in the sand with a woman's foot in her lap. I'm a bit unnerved by the audacity of it, so I ask what is happening.

"Oh, she came by before to ask if anyone wanted a massage in our group..."

I look back and then notice her -- either performing a foot massage or a pedicure. I am sometimes uncomfortable with the idea of even a private massage, so doing it in a public place with other people clustered around you -- you have to be the opposite of self-aware.

Suddenly, some Arabian music draws my attention to the front stage and I see a fair woman in a flowing blue dress and flaunting her wares -- especially the ones needed for a belly dance. The jiggling, the suggestive stares, the serpentine movements and the gyrations have some of the audience enthralled. The juxtaposition of these two women -- dancing or massaging -- aka making an honest living, speaks volumes to me. As we applaud for the dance, I spy the hair strings of another customer getting intricately fine-tuned with beads by our maroon masseuse. We shuffle away soon after, as I am torn between my embarrassment of getting a public service from this woman who looks so out-of-place for this swanky establishment and the "altruistic" desire to get something done from her, so as to help her... make ends meet.


When US beckoned me by Siddharth Wagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.