This is a rant, not a medical paper describing an addition to the plethora of syndromes we seem to be plagued with. Why I stated the very obvious is because I do not want readers(if any) to be biased towards what they are about to read. This is me, talking about what has started to bother me constantly over the past couple of years. To start with, I was told, as a child, that my physical beauty is not a contributor to my self-worth. A very idealistic statement, this got my head twisted into a complicated lack of self appreciation and denial. I have, what I believe, the quintessential physical attributes of most women who belong to the southern parts of India. I have curly hair, skin that is irrationally quick at tanning in the sun, broad bones and substantial amounts of squishy bits on them. I have yet to come across a social gathering where I can find one female with none of these features. Everybody has at least one of them. I am no statistical genius but this seems to suggest that these features seem to be the norm around this place, then why is it that our definition of beauty is majorly inclusive of fair skin, straight hair and rail thin bodies? Don't get me wrong, I do not hold anything against those with the light skin or straight hair or rail thin bodies. I believe that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, textures and colors.I am aware of the vast wealth of writings dealing with body images and how these are warped by media images and so on. I do not wish to repeat all that has been said about this issue. All I want to do is point out that something as congenital as the texture of ones hair is taken into account while sizing up a person, and sizing them up for social acceptance, not for modelling a hair product. Yes, this may seem a little extreme to a few of you and if it does, I must say, I envy you, because the other end of the spectrum has people like me that have been scorned for the texture of my hair. No I do not have hair that hurts people or gets in the way of everyday living, hell, I have even been complimented about my hair on rare occasions. I am referring to those who have looked at my hair and exclaimed about how difficult it must be for me to live with it!!! No I don't have a crippling life threatening decease that is difficult to cope with, it is my hair that they are on about.
It does seem silly, doesn't it? It probably is to those who aren't on the receiving end of this tirade of observations. I do not refer to them as comments or insults because the people plating them up are honestly not malicious( sometimes!). They do not intend to taunt me, they are quite sympathetic to how difficult it must be for me. This is a bigger problem than plain old bullying. I do not mean to imply that bullying is easy to deal with, just that, with bullying, the roles are clear, the tormentor and the victim. With this behavior, the intentions of those involved is very unclear. In their minds, they are simply consoling me for having to deal with curly hair or broad bones or quite simply, tanned skin. They feel sorry for me and this is way worse than someone making fun of me because of the same. Them being sorry about these attributes lures me into believing that there is something to hide or something that is unwanted and unpleasant. This needs to stop, because, to overhear your favorite aunt say to your father that she only wishes you'd loose some weight and stop playing sports in the sun so you could look pretty, is incomprehensibly destructive. My aunt loves me from the bottom of her heart but her definition of beauty is so far away from reality that she believes I need to look like the photo-shopped images she's bombarded with in media. These sentences that people spew at one another, in a generic sense, just need to stop. Trying to tell one another on how to improve oneself is absolutely welcome, the kind I am talking about are the remarks on how I would find my knight in shining armor the minute I loose those ever present, extra 5 kilos. Whatever your intentions are, do not go around giving advise to people about how they can look better, not unless,
you are a professional stylist and are getting paid to do it.
