“Morning Rojie Appa”
“Morning”
“Your shawl does not look good with your Sari”
“Oh”
“How are you Rojie?”
“Fine thanks”
“No you are not fine”
“I am, really, I promise”
“No, you are looking very sick”
“Really? I feel fine”
“Especially your face, your face looks very bad.”
Last night I went to a wedding so woke up this morning with my hair looking, I thought, rather nice from all the coifing and styling. I had some fresh flowers left over, so put one in my hair, put on my favorite Sari and nice new Pakistani shawl and off I went. I thought I was looking pretty good, all things considered. The office thought otherwise.
People in Bangladesh are painfully truthful. Having grown up with painful English politeness this is rather difficult to get ones head round. The smallest detail of ones appearance will be picked over, available for public consumption:
“Oh look she has a spot today”
“Aren’t her arms bumpy?”
“Look, her nail-vanish is chipped”
Part of the problem is that my idea of what looks nice and their idea of what looks nice are often rather different. Especially in terms of matching. My lovely bottle green Sari and my black and red shawl go perfectly, I want to scream. You, on the other hand, are wearing 42 patterns and every color in the rainbow all mashed up together.
I’m thinking of leaving my precious copy of Grazia lying round the office.
Mostly though, Its quite ammusing being told your face looks sick, that you are terribly absent minded, that you are not good at dressing yourself. Really, to be fair, i’m not very good at dressing myself. I have come into the office with my Sari upside down, with my Sari inside out, with a broken shoe, with my hair so insane even I had to laugh-no wonder they need to give me a quick once over when I arrive in the morning.
Perhaps I’d better buy some more make-up though? And a Bengali fashion magazine? Or maybe i’ll just try to learn to live with a few home truths…
