The myth about pretty people

I am starting to feel that May is a rather long month! Although I have been caught up with so many of my other passions yet time does not seem to fly by and hence I feel obligated to write another piece on this space because I’m trying to avoid too many dry spells here!

I did not have the slightest clue as to what I should write about. “What do I feel strongly for?” I asked myself and the answers were many “women’s rights, gender discrimination, corruption, jugad, female foeticide, the ironies of life, consensual sex, the Third gender, education, freedom of speech, practising any religion etc. etc.” however I chose this topic today to talk about because I wanted to share how I feel when most of my peers and colleagues have this notion in their mind that pretty people have it all perfectly in place just because of the way they look.

Right from the very start, from the time my memory empowers me, I remember to have been blessed (or should I say otherwise) to be perceived as beautiful.

Now before I can embark upon my premises leading to the conclusion, I want to clear out that this piece is not directed at drowning pretty people in self-pity. As for me, I do not have any qualms about the way I look or am treated but this is just a humble effort to break the myths that associate beautiful people. I will enlist the myths as follows:

v  Beauty is power redefined:

  Well I do not think so. Opinions may differ. But belonging to a society where everything rests upon your looks and people judge you based on your external appearances can only spell disaster especially for females. Your worth is weighed by the complexion of your skin, length and texture of your hair, presence of dimples and other ridiculous things. No woman, beautiful or otherwise can win in this subject. This cripples intellect. Sometimes you do get the perks of having a pretty face but not always.

v  Beautiful people have it easy: 

 In this age of cut-throat competition, how can any sane person think that being pretty will get you everything easily. I remember most of my friends claiming “Oh don’t you worry you will get a job, one look at your face and the interviewer will hire you” well NEWSFLASH!!!! The very perception is demeaning!

v  Pretty people are so popular: 

  For those of you who do not know, popularity comes at a cost. Beauty often has to survive the backlash of haters. My bet is that almost everybody harvests a secret hate for any popular person in the nearest vicinity. While it may seem that popularity breeds friendships but mostly it breeds jealousy and contempt. Now who would want to be on the receiving end of those? Sometimes in reality beautiful people are the loneliest of all. Think about that if you can.

v  Beauty puts you constantly under the microscope: 

  Thusly you cannot pick your nose or have a bad hair day or sneeze in public or put on a few Kgs. Simply put you cannot be yourself in any way for fear of being caught and then interrogated and embarrassed about it. What the hell I say!

v  Pretty people have it rough too:

   A friend of mine said “I used to be one of those kids whom nobody would pick on their team because they thought I was ugly”, I said, “Well that makes two of us” to which she contorted her face and blurted “but you are so beautiful!” exasperated I say “simply because I am not athletic and I always made my team lose. I was a liability”. My point in sharing this is to show how this stupid myth about beauty blocks people’s common perspectives.

v  Beauty is equal to dumb:

  This is the worst of all. People judging the content of your intellect by the colour of your skin. Does that make sense at all? We often dismiss the opinions of beautiful people on the basis that he/she must spend all their time in self-grooming, what would they know about the world economy, politics or history!?!

v  Beauty begets love or at least a good marriage:

 Oh really? I feel ridiculous when mothers say “Thank god my girl is beautiful otherwise I would have paid through the nose (dowry) to get her a good “well-matched” boy!” wtf! Seriously? <Also taking beauty and fairness cream ads into the context> I know lots of beautiful women and even you can think of tons of famous personalities who went through messy divorces and break-ups. Those facts alone are enough to break this myth that beauty gets you love or marriage.

I would not delve more into the realms of the stereotyping that beautiful people suffer from. Taylor Swift’s beautiful composition “The lucky one” perfectly sums up the consequences of beauty. Somehow and sadly if I may, it reminds me of Marilyn Monroe in more ways than one. "Everybody loves pretty... everybody loves cool!!"

These misconceptions about beauty have put barriers between people. They need to be pulled down, for us to really connect.

"Sometimes people are beautiful

Not in looks

Not in what they say.

Just in what they are" - Markus Zusak

LOVE :)

To no more judging. Cheers!

ADITI

TO BE OR NOT TO BE

"It's hard to be taken seriously when you don't have connections. And unfortunately, when you don't have connections, it seems like the only people you can connect with are other people who don't have connections.” said a random man in New York. He seemed normal and good looking and I bet even handsome if he smiled.

There is a very inspiring page in Facebook- the social networking giant called “The Humans of New York” which today I explored on the recommendation of a good friend of mine. I was glued to the testimonials of the various ordinary people and how they fought losses, tragedy, abuse, fear, pressure, confusion and the various other vices of the societies of this world with love, tongue-in-cheek humour, beyond-the-years smartness and most of all smiles and courage. They were remarkable in more ways than one.

I mean I have some pretty dark corners in my life too and I am sure we all have. We live in an age where we live dual lives even before knowing that we do. There’s one life where we are pristine characters with respect to everything, where we bow and smile and greet and are the so-called good kids of our parents. And there is the other that contains all the complicated gross stuff that we won’t even dare to discuss with anyone.

It is quite an unforgiving world that we live in, where the lights are blinding outside but inside the blackness is sickening. “Nobody cares”, we often complain but forget to ask ourselves “Do we?” Everyone is juggling trying to really live instead of just blatantly existing (as those who believe in “live, don’t just survive” are supposed to be cool!) with keep oneself from drowning in his own sea of demons.

Sure, a lot of things around us are impersonal but boundaries don’t divide us. Much like the people of New York, there are tons of inspiring people here in India too and all over the world. We are united in our difficulties, sadness, courage, and quest for survival, journey to fulfil our dreams and want to leave a mark. It’s a fine line between despair and hope and though self-pity is an easy way out and we often see the negativities around us and people plagued by it, that’s only half the truth. A good number dwell on the other side too and that’s heartening to see.

It’s the journey that matters not the results! We spend too much time on just one question “to be or not to be?” and lose out on so many thing. Time slips by and we forget to be happy, crazy, inspired and a million other things just worrying about millions of other stupid things.

LOVE J

We never lose to love, we lose by holding back.

ADITI

Alive

See how the city lights dance

Full of promises of opportunities and chance

People moving fast

Cars zooming past

We are alive

Full of hope and life

Armed with a thousand dreams

Brushing off dust of what-could-have-beens

Crisp shirts and ironed ties

We are making our way through to the dais

We are alive

Full of struggle and strife

From the streets to fine living

Assisted by humble high thinking

No magic mantra, no shortcuts

We learn to crawl, walk and then run

We are alive

And doing just fine

Fighting our own battles

Not shying away from the hassles

Surviving wounds and many stitches

On our way from rags to riches

We are more than alive

And proud of our kind

We have fallen and gotten back up

Unflinching and unwavering on the path

Wills of steel and titanium resolve

Life has come full circle

We are alive

Children of the night

Sweaty days and sleepless years

Open eyes blinking away fear

Little joys that light the way

Actions that are louder than the words we say

We are alive

Bidding our time

Pushed, pulled stretched and burned

Stoked with hardships and purged

Redemption is served, good and neat

The fruits of patience and toil are sweet

We are alive

Nurtured on cold ice

The spotlights sing

Dark days on the retreat

The centre-stage is claimed

Finally the name shines on silver, engraved

Yes we are alive

Polished and shined

Praises sung in our honour

Peace prevail in our corner

Reminiscing in silent recluse

Of a journey painted in beautiful hues

Never still, never quiet

Never passive, never trite

Filled with joy and with light

We are souls ever alive

Being Single is Fine

Summer is here as we all know and feel but unlike other summers, this time around; the weather in my city has been unexpectedly pleasant. It has rained almost every day since last week or at least a cool breeze has graced us with its presence. In such a time my mind wanders to unchartered emotions.

The wind blows, a sudden cool touches the skin, the mind is rejuvenated and you want to do newer exciting activities. You fancy so many things like maybe a movie, or a walk or a dance but amid all these fanciful thoughts you wonder if you are lonely? Happens with me all the time. So I ventured out into the windy evening with my earphones plugged, in search of answers, to settle it once and for all.

Speaking for myself, I have always known that being single is not so dreadful. Sure you have your down moments but don’t you have them even when you are with someone? It’s mind-blowingly simple actually and we don’t see it. A lot of my single friends think and also act as if being single was a disease, but is it really?

You can rent any movie you want without having an argument, you do not have to feel let down when you find out the differences between you and your partner, and you can do whatever you want whenever you want without having to worry about a second person critically appraising your every action. The freedom is addictive.

And anyway relationships today are more like a voice on the phone or a text on a screen. It’s not the real thing anymore and it gnaws at your mind. Being single lets you talk to anyone you want, meet random people over kebabs and converse, and I mean really talk without having to feel guilty. You can let your hair down at a rave party and dance like a maniac without having to worry how your non-dancer partner will get through the night!

I am not saying being in a relationship is bad at all, but not being in it is not the end of the world. We have all read and understand the age old gospel of “sharing is joy” but not all the time. Sometimes you just want to lay back in your baggy-T, put on a sitcom and gorge on your French fries and beer alone.

So yes this time around when that little voice in my head asked, “Do you wish you had someone to hold your hand and share this moment?”

I said, “yes why not but no regrets, there will be tons of windy days with James blunt singing in the background, maybe then but this moment now is only mine” and so it was settled.

The magnanimity of little things happening around us escapes us when we are consumed in a relationship (positively or negatively) however if we are not we get to bask in the glory of the joy received.

LOVE J

The grass is always greener on the other side.

ADITI

Humans, Edited

Today was a different day in all respect, unlike other days I did not have much to do. There were no kids sneezing unannounced or talking incomprehensible things, then there was no mother shouting at the top of her lungs in full volume to do chores, there were no art attacks inside my head that needed me to scribble, stitch or draw.

In fact it was out of ordinary and I enjoyed the tranquillity. In an otherwise hot day, I sat in my parents’ air-conditioned room like a cosmopolitan queen sipping on my green tea and reading the paper. ‘Genome Editing’- the phrase caught my eye and piqued my curiosity. Science has taken such huge leaps that now there are techniques available to mankind that can make the smallest changes in the DNA composition of a living being with pinpoint accuracy.

It took me awhile to understand the full meaning of this beyond just the definition, I mean the effects and implications it will have. It could change a way of life; in fact it could change almost everything. In our quest to be PERFECT, we will lose all sensibility of beauty and ugly or right and wrong!!

Of course it will help cure diseases but how about this, if no one falls sick there will be no one taking care of no one!! No one would be empathetic; hence the sentiment will be extinct. Who would have thought that was possible? A sentiment could be extinct? There might not be boys with cleft-ed chins and girls with cute freckles. The little joys of finding something adorable in someone will be lost. Everyone might have dimples since that’s something everybody finds cute!! But maybe it will lose its innate value once it’s reproduced mindlessly. The glitches in humans will vanish and with it so will the senses of finding something beautiful or pitiful or lovely or ugly.

Humans will eventually emerge as a super-perfect race with superior quality flawless genes (like Hitler always dreamed of). Get this, as of now we crave for designer clothes, houses, cars, almost everything right down to our underwear but a day will come when we’d brag about having designer kids! Crazy right!?! We could edit our partners and make all the irritating habits go away (you must be thinking: what a dream come true!!) but is that what we’d want? A perfect life that is so perfect that it is almost scary!! PHEW!

LOVE J

With great power comes great responsibility

ADITI