Vogue Online

BY MADHUSHREE GHOSH
JUNE 16, 2022
Photo by Gary S Greer

As the daughter of refugees from East Bengal, my world has been my parents’ memories. When I left for the United States to attend graduate school, I held on steadfastly to reminders of home—food, festivals and ceremonies, or things of beauty that indicated we were bhadralok: well-educated people, typically Bengalis, regarded as members of a cultured class.

One of those items was hair oil. As a child, my hair was regularly drenched in Jabakusum oil that smelt of my ma. The perfumed oil, which both ma and baba had grown up applying as well, came in a dark glass bottle wrapped in a red and white label with the illustration of a hibiscus flower emblazoned on it. My entire childhood could fit into that glass bottle filled with red oil, secured with an ill-fitting metal cap. I couldn’t acquire a bottle like that in America when I arrived in 1993. With the over-powering shade of White supremacy colouring the global wellness industry, many versions of Jabakusum oil have since emerged in plastic bottles, with unfamiliar ayurvedic additions like jojoba and essential oils.