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Journalism of Courage
RENUKA ARYA, P3 personal-ity, is all keyed up for her party on coming Friday night. Whispering invitations on her very latest cellphone, she can8217;t wait to let her streaked hair down at the do she8217;s been organising for weeks. On the menu are wine and cheese, champagne and canapeacute;8230; and, hold your breath, for the main course, Renuka8217;s called in a doctor to administer botox injections to her friends!
Girls just wanna have fun has ac-quired yet another twist in Metro India 2006. And botox parties are real revelry for some women today. Had you been even a mildly in-terested observer of Female Social-ising Habits, you8217;d know of kitty parties, have heard of mehendi dos, read about Tupperware get-togeth-ers, and, lately, gaped at television images of celeb type women throw-ing pedicure parties.
For the uninitiated, botox is de-rived from the bacteria clostridium botulinum, which, when injected under the eyes or forehead, tem-porarily paralyses the muscles and thus tautens skin. And women of means are increasingly falling for botox. The parties also make eco-nomic sense: a phial which costs Rs 20-30,000, depending on the make, for 100 units, can be used on four or five persons, so the invitees share the cost with the host. If you went to a salon to get yourself botoxed, you8217;d be billed Rs 8,000-10,000 for frown lines and forehead; and Rs 4,000-5,000 more for laugh lines and crow8217;s feet.
But however compelling the eco-nomic or aesthetic reasons, botox injections are a serious medical process. That8217;s why these soirees are so hush-hush. Says Dr Rashmi Taneja of the department of plastic surgery at Delhi8217;s Ganga Ram Hospi-tal: 8220;Off and on, I8217;ve got offers for such parties, but it8217;s against medical ethics, so I have declined.8221; Dr Snehal Sriram at Kaya Skin Clinic confirms the trend: 8220;We did get a lot of offers for botox parties, but we do not endorse it.8221; The be-fore- and-after instructions have to be followed to a T, or you risk seri-ous side effects. For example, you shouldn8217;t mix it with alcohol.
Kaya has its own variation on the party theme: women and doctors get together in an informal atmos- phere, refreshments are passed around, and one participant gets a free demo shot. Last October, the clinic roped in Pooja Bedi as brand ambassador, to up the glam quo-tient of its workshops and spread the good word.
Taneja has been nudging would-be partiers to take the injections in a supervised manner: 8220;This lady re-quested me to attend her party, but I convinced her to come over to my clinic, so she and her friends could take the shots in a surgical environ-ment.8221; So, when you get that invite, proceed with care.
