For Anshu Rajput, a simple trip to a beauty salon was once a treasured annual luxury. Her last visit was in January, and as December arrives, she has not returned. At 27, Anshu knows the painful reality of such public spaces for someone like her: the prolonged stares, the awkward silences, the stylist who avoids eye contact. Eventually, the fear of being scrutinized overpowered her wish to feel pampered, leading her friends to learn beauty treatments to help her at home.
The Scars That Run Deeper Than Skin
Anshu's life was irrevocably altered when she was just 15 years old. In 2014, while she slept on a charpai in her home's courtyard, a 55-year-old neighbour allegedly threw acid on her after she rejected his advances. "The pain cannot be explained," Anshu recalls. "If hot steam touches your hand, it burns for days. Acid is beyond that." The corrosive substance entered her mouth, destroyed her teeth, and left her face severely scarred, necessitating seven surgeries.
However, the psychological wounds that forced her into isolation emerged later. "People think survival means you're fine," she says softly. "They don't see how the looks slowly erase you." She adds that while salons are meant to make one feel beautiful, for women like her, they often induce feelings of invisibility or worse.
A Sanctuary Named The Nest
This dynamic changed when Anshu stepped into The Nest, a salon located in south Delhi's Green Park market. As she sat in the stylist's chair, no one stared, and no uncomfortable silence fell. For the first time in years, she didn't have to brace herself. "It wasn't just a haircut," Anshu explains. "It was the feeling that I still belong. I won't tie my hair for at least three days now."
Outwardly, The Nest resembles a high-end salon with royal Rajasthani decor and premium beauty and wellness services. At its core, however, it reimagines luxury by weaving dignity into its very foundation. The salon offers any beauty or wellness service free of cost to acid attack and burn survivors. Private VIP rooms protect them from unwanted attention, allowing them to sit before a mirror without anxiety.
Reclaiming Identity and Confidence
For Rupa, now 30, this environment brought an overwhelming sense of ease. She remembers small private rituals from her youth, like applying a bindi or a hint of lipstick. "I had a tiny mole just below my lips," she says. "I used to think I looked like my mother." This self-image was shattered in August 2008, when at just 13, she was attacked with acid by her stepmother. The burns on her face and shoulders led to nearly 30 surgeries over the years.
"I felt I would never look like my mother again. I thought I would never be able to wear makeup," Rupa shares. The aftermath involved not just physical agony but a gradual erasure of her identity. Moments of confidence returned in fragments, like when she walked the ramp in 2013. At The Nest, she found a similar acceptance. "It feels like we are among our own here," Rupa states. "When you are in a space like this, the wrong gaze slowly disappears. This place doesn't make you feel different. It reminds you you're still you."
The Vision Behind the Mission
The salon is the brainchild of Harita Mehta, a senior advocate at the Delhi High Court and a long-time women's rights activist. Her work with survivors spans years through the Meher Foundation and nearly a decade of collaboration with the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW).
"While working with DCW, including at places like AIIMS, I heard the cries of women every day," Mehta reveals. "Over time, that work extended to acid attack survivors — women whose lives are often erased the moment the attack happens." She emphasizes that survival rarely means recovery, as many survivors are disowned by families and ostracized by society. "This space is meant to tell them they haven't reached the end," she asserts.
The initiative plans to launch a fundraising campaign to support medical reconstruction and rehabilitation, with a portion of the salon's profits dedicated to the cause. Awareness efforts will involve multiple NGOs. "This is not charity," Mehta firmly states. "It is dignity."
