Dating back to my summer holidays, just before the beginning of sixth semester of engineering at VJTI, I had the sudden rage of getting a piercing done; not the usual earrings commonly adorned by the rustics but a barbell in my eyebrow. Many would argue that getting pierced in the eyebrow is not a big deal abroad, but it was me, an Indian college student, born in a family where patriarchial dominance descended since ages. A follow up visit to the doctor with my great grandmother triggered the curiosity. Tried coaxing my parents on seeing the poster on the wall of the clinic. Not surprisingly, the request was quashed citing health risk to my eyes, hideous look, social acceptance & the prevailing conservativeness in the society.Come two weeks later, a repeat visit. This time, dad did not accompany us. Mothers generally tend to give into their boy's nagging.This was my chance & I took it. My insistence on getting it done was a success. Given my everyday-life eccentricity, mother perhaps thought that removable piercing seemed a better deal than agreeing for a permanent tattoo on my body. Thanks to Mrs. Bhave, the lady surgeon, I had a sterile stainless steel curved barbell inserted in my right eyebrow. Sanitizing my eyebrow area with methanol, proceeded by local anaesthesia to numb the region, a big needle pierced through the skin, oozing out streams of blood. With the help of the syringe I could feel the barbell being inserted from the threaded end. For few minutes it was a numbing experience with uneasiness felt with a foreign object jostling inside the narrow tunnel before being screwed to hang tight.
It was truly something that no one would have dared doing all this by my ancestors or my cousins, for it was indeed something going through an ordeal.
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