Life and the rest: May 2011

I am Very beautiful.. How about you??

**DISCLAIMER: Please read the whole blog post before making an opinion. This is a post to establish my stand in terms of beauty and not to hurt any one. If I did, I apologize for it.Thank you. **

We all know that, "Beauty is skin deep."

"Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder."

"Beauty is..

Oh! Stop it..Stop it Darling. Where are we going with this?

Shut the philosophy book close and just be practical and straight for a second there Ok?

Now get up go out and ask someone, "who do you think is beautiful?"

“Aishwarya Rai Bachchan of course”(not your wife eh? Hmm..)

When you ask what is real beauty we do tend to think about so many wonderful things.

But with what we see and feel in everyday life, we know that in average- beauty means looking good.

When you mean beautiful, it means appeal. When you mean beautiful it means people feel a kind of warmth in them when seeing you.

Yes.. If not why huge cosmetic companies like DOVE make billions on beauty products?

Face it.

Beauty IS looking good. (at least for average people like me)

Well now since we are clear with that, let us move on to the next part.

Are we beautiful?

Am I beautiful? (I certainly am).

What makes one beautiful? What is the beauty quotient?

How does one become beautiful?

For this let us take some examples to assimilate in the process.

First example – my story.

Ok this is it. I have a very dark complexion, I mean really really black..like badly roasted coffee beans. It had been my problem since my childhood.

I seriously thought that I was the ugly duckling of our house. When me and my sister walked in the road the road side Romeos would tease as ‘new moon and full moon walking together’.

On top of that I was also on the plump side (let us blame it on the genes) and finally with huge eyes like those over sized zero watt bulbs. I used to stare hard in the mirror which always reflected back an ugly girl. (Yeah! poor mirror)

I am quite sure that it didn’t happen only to me but there were/are many others out there with the same problem. (The benevolent Gods for all the cosmetic companies)

Because of this when I was in my school I started writing depressing poems on me – now thinking back that was what started my writing in the first place. Good start eh? Then it became huge inflated inferiority complex. Oh boy..Not good.

Thankfully it didn’t stop there.

It took several years for me to understand one simple fact.

Being beautiful is an added luxury, but being happy and contented with what we have is the necessity.

And guess what? Being happy has nothing to do with looking beautiful.

I slowly tried to forget how I looked. I started involving myself in being happy. And that I derived from helping people and making people happy. I went out of my way to make people smile (not big philanthropic deeds mind you, just simple stuff like helping to move a chair or carry a bag) and that put a permanent smile on my face.

I forgot how I looked, who cares to look at the mirror when you know you are going to see a big goofy smile in it.

I told repeatedly to myself that Good or bad, I have been given a special place in this world and not the simple fact of my appearance is going to change that.

Ultimately I became positive minded. What followed that was a tremendous change.

I started to attract more people and thus made more friends. I started treating insults as mere statements and sometimes had the common sense to turn them into compliments.

Some relative would come and tell me” You are very dark. Use fair and lovely dear, otherwise it will be difficult for your parents to get a bridegroom for you.”

I would say”Lord Krishna gave yards and yards of saree for paanjali. If he needed he could have made loads and loads of fair and lovely (herbal only) tubes appear to make him fair. But he didn’t. Did he?

He remained dark and see he had hundreds of gopikas ready in line for him”(You have to understand one thing here, I am not trying to advocate against using fairness creams but really does it end there?)

For those who would tease me as ‘Blacky’ I would say “no problem honey. Now I am black because of melanin excess. But later on when we get old, my skin would be taut and perfect my dears and yours will look like saggy baggy (myth or not I still have an excuse- fair people no offense- peace).

I will then come and laugh at you like the guy in Simpson series (haahaa……..haahaa………haahaa).”

No matter what you are - black or white, thick or thin, ugly or beautiful, life goes on.

Life is as you take it and as you make it.

One of my friends was very lean that she really looked like a walking stick. Poor girl they also called her so and all sorts of other names.

But guess what? After marriage and kids she now has the perfect figure and looks stunning and those who teased her as walking stick now look like rolling barrels.

Isn’t life funny?

There was this other girl who had her face packed with pimples. She used to feel so bad that guys used to call her 'simply pimply'.

I told her that she was the moon. She looked back at me and I said ”yes. If you look closer at moon it is one pimply surface. But look at it in the night from the earth.

With its beautiful smile of moonlight it had made its place in world’s literature as the celestial beauty. Many people are like that my dear. By looks they are the moon in the sky.

When you look close then you will see the real surface. But you are the moon in the sky by heart.” She smiled at that and I felt like I was just watching the full moon.

There was this other guy who had stuttering problems.

A very light one though but he was very intimidated by his friends and so he never spoke up much. I felt that to be such a stupid thing to do. He was an ‘ok’ looking guy but he had this electrifying smile.

I told him one day “if you stuttered while you speak, just stop speaking instantly and smile instead. Try this method and tell me the result.”

He came back beaming in few days. “You were right. They don’t mind my stuttering anymore not even the girls. What treatment is this?”

“You have a stunning smile, you idiot. When you smile they forget your stuttering” I told him.

After all these years of research in the field – (oh please don’t call me aunty) I finally found the answer.

The best medicine to cure the ugliness and to be beautiful till your last breath, in fact it is an instant cure.

It is all in the smile people…

It is all in the attitude.

My attitude and my smile made my ‘bulb eyes’ into the ‘eyes that sparkled when smiling’. The Blacky had turned into a black beauty.

It is all in the smile which lights up your face and lights up the hearts of those who watch.

You don’t have to have a stunning personality or spend ten hours in the salon. You don’t have to spend thousands in cosmetics nor do you have to spend in surgeries.

All takes is one little stretch of your lips, an inch or so to say.

All it takes is a smile of love.

When you smile you flux your muscles but relax your heart. When you smile you don’t just light up your face but also those who watch you.

When you smile it is a beautiful blossom of a flower, when you laugh it is the wonderful waterfalls,

when you look happy and say hello to someone it is their perfect sunshine for the day.

However deformed your face or distorted your look is - Smile will definitely make you look beautiful.

Like Kahlil Gibran says, "Beauty is not in the face, beauty is the light of the heart."

So let us shine that light on all dark places and make the world and our lives bright.

We have to accept one thing.

All kids are beautiful in general, they are the symbol of real beauty. Whether it is a perfect blue eyed white kid of royalty or a dirty black kid from the slums with running nose or any other kind for that matter. They are beautiful.

Have you ever wondered why?

They smile straight from their hearts. They speak with their eyes. That is why.

You don’t have to look beautiful to be beautiful.

Remember,

Being beautiful has nothing to do with being happy.

But being happy will certainly make you beautiful.

Also..

Beautiful people are not always wonderful

But wonderful people are always beautiful.

So smile…

The smile from the deepest of your heart is the most beautiful thing in the world. That which tells you that you are the most beautiful person in the whole world..

So smile and make yourself beautiful..