Marx and the Mani-Pedi

MUMBAI, INDIA—As soon as I entered the salon, I took out my copy of “Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Foundations of Modern Social Thought.” I scanned the first page nervously as I waited for the receptionist to call my name. “Modern social theory first emerged during the period of the ‘great transformation’...” the introduction began.

I couldn’t concentrate. Everything around me was pink.

Before this summer, my personal grooming consisted of, you know, soap. I felt a deep mistrust towards anyone who would shell out twenty bucks to have someone else clean their feet.

But I was now an intern at an Indian fashion magazine, and messy toenails were not going to go with my new four-inch heels.

I had come to Lakme Salon for a manicure-pedicure, known (to the initiated) as a mani-pedi.

It’s not hard to find a salon in Mumbai, which is India’s New York and Los Angeles rolled into one. As the receptionist ushered me to a reclining chair, I tried to act as if I knew what was coming next.

A man came to plug in a footbath, which vibrated slightly. I could deal with this, I thought, as I dunked my toes in the warm water. Deep breaths.

The manicurist, when he arrived, was a short, balding man who looked like a taxi driver. Without much small talk, he covered his lap with purple towels and set my feet on top of them. Then he commenced clipping and filing with quiet concentration.

His hands, I noticed, were extraordinarily soft. The nails on his fingers were battered and clipped short?all but the pinkie, which had been painted with a delicate sheen of polish.

I felt guilty sitting there and acting as if I took this personal foot care for granted. But without any Hindi, my conversational efforts were limited to, “You have big family? Ah, very good, very good!” He was running a pointy stick around my nails. All of this seemed very complicated.

Just at that moment, another man appeared at my elbow. It was time to start the manicure.

Soon I was sitting with my limbs sprawled as one man exfoliated the soles of my feet and the second filed my nails and dabbed them with cuticle cream. (The two men, I later found out, were brothers). I had assumed that this whole process would be uncomfortable and would leave

me deeply weirded out.

Instead, it felt delightful.

I was reminded of bath time as a child in my grandparents’ enormous tub. I would slide down on my back, submerge my whole body and then lurk there, grinning, until with luxurious slowness I let my stomach rise from the water. The smooth expanse looked like an island; I imagined my belly button as a lake. Each of my two knees would emerge in turn like mountains from the deep.

Not since I grew too big for this game had I regarded my body with a similar kind of bemusement.

I had thought getting a mani-pedi would make me feel awkward and over-privileged. But it wasn’t like that at all. I felt expansive, like a cruise ship or a continent. I was supporting many industries. Filing my nails produced a fine white powder, like the byproduct of some complicated mechanical process.

True, I was capable of tending to my hands and feet myself. But this way, I felt as if I was becoming part of the GDP.

For the past month I had been overwhelmed by Mumbai, with its waves of commuters that I shoved through on my way to work. The trains overflowed with passengers who clung madly to the open doors; the buses were crammed with people. I slipped through unnoticed and alone.

Now I suddenly remembered that all those bodies I maneuvered past had feet, and all the female feet wore nail polish. No woman I saw in Mumbai was so poor that there wasn’t some disintegrating color on her toes, some trace of shimmer. Personal grooming, which had always struck me as a waste of time, took on a new character. Getting your nails done wasn’t selfish, it was a kind of neighborhood beautification. I was living in a city of 40 million filthy, scuffed, aching feet, but all across Mumbai women were getting pedicures?on Malabar Hill, in the narrow slum alleys of Dharavi, women were getting their toes painted, and now it was my turn, like anyone else, to add to the city’s kaleidoscope of color.

I realized this sounded a little too close to the Marx I had been reading.

I felt dizzy. Had I just realized my species being in a salon?

My mind was bouncing excitedly from one famous foot maintenance to another?Jesus washing the feet of his apostles, Mary Magdalene rubbing Jesus’ toes with her hair?when I realized my mani-pedi was over.

The brothers moved on to their next customer, and I was left abandoned, the polish still drying on my nails.

I knew what Marx would have to say about this.

But I still sat there for a little while longer. Then I paid with my credit card and walked out again into the dirty streets.



-Lois E. Beckett ’09 is a Social Studies concentrator in Pforzheimer House. She indulges in daily pedicures at the Crimson.