Geetanjali Krishna: Tips from a foot soldier

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I don't know what my father back home in our village in Bengal would say if he knew I spent all my time worshipping at altar of women's feet!" grinned Sanjay as he got down to telling me the story of his life. And since he was giving me a superbly relaxing pedicure, I listened.

"This is a female-dominated field," said he, "but there's a lot of scope for young hard working fellows like me. For girls are often not strong enough to give satisfactory massages," said he, wringing my feet hard as if to prove a point. I winced in exquisite agony, and asked him how he came to Delhi and why he opted to devote his life to women's feet.

"My village offers little scope by the way of employment," said Sanjay, "other than tea picking, which is not at all lucrative." Not surprisingly, he, like most others of his generation, saw Delhi as a Mecca of opportunity.

Unlettered and unskilled, he arrived here four years ago with a couple of cousins, looking for employment.

"The jobs that were easiest to find were domestic ones. Everyone in Delhi seems to need servants, cooks, child minders and watchmen!" said he. Within the first week, he and his cousins all found such jobs. "I became a cook," said he grinning, "and even though the work was not hard and I picked it up quickly, I didn't like it."

After the freedom of his village, he found it restrictive to stay and work in the same house. "After some time, the fact that I was not at liberty to go out more than once a week really bothered me," said he.

That's when he met a friend from his village, who was learning hair-cutting at a salon in Delhi. "The pay to start with wasn't good, but he told me that the tips were great," said Sanjay.

He quickly picked up the art of massage, and became a bit of an expert on pressure points. "When a couple of my pedicure customers returned and asked for me, I decided to specialise in this field," he recounted. Pedicurists in Delhi, Sanjay learned, earn pretty well "" "most good ones have a long list of repeat clients, and they can easily double their salaries through tips," said he.

Over the last four years, he's learnt many ways to ensure big tips from satisfied clients. "Praise never fails," grinned he, "specially when coupled with criticism of someone else! So I'll tell a client "" your feet are so pretty, you should see some of the feet I have to work on!"

Another surefire trick, he said: "I give many of them tips on how to maintain their feet, even how to massage them at home." He also suggests nail varnish colours with great authority. "But at the end of the day, I ensure that my client goes away feeling as relaxed as she'd be walking on a cloud "" and that's what gets the best tips!" he said.

Today, he stays with some relatives close to the salon where he work, chills out with friends after work, and tries out every new beauty product in the market. "Would all this have been possible if I had any other job?

Never!" he said. And when he goes back home, he tells his family that he's got a well-paid embassy job. "They're happy, I'm happy! For I'm doing something I do well, even though I know they'd think it's a lowly job. All I know is that cleaning and massaging women's feet has cured me of my money woes!"