BEAUTY

What does beauty mean? 

Of course it means being fair as milk! Times are changing, so that’s not how it is everywhere but that’s what it still means in many parts of India. For many Indians fair skin tone is nearly synonymous with beauty. For the longest period in history I let myself believe that it was, in fact, true. I still remember the taunts from my childhood about my dusky skin tone.

What is it with Indians and fair skin?!

My brain would understand the fascination if the fair skin provided some added advantages such as protection from radiation in case of a holocaust or at the very least, inbuilt UV protection. But as far as my knowledge goes it doesn’t provide any special benefits! Is it because Indians want to copy the foreigners? The sheer variety of fairness creams in the market and advertisements on television show just how many Indians suffer from this fairness syndrome. As if fairness creams for girls wasn’t enough, we have fairness creams for boys as well. Caucasians love to get their skin tanned and we do the opposite. The irony of life!

Of course my confidence was affected because of these skewed concepts of beauty. But there was one person in my family who had a different opinion. My confidence levels would have been different if not for my cousin. She would call me beautiful like Naomi Campbell. After all I was dusky, slim and very tall. Apart from her nobody else seemed to pay any attention to how a simple comment can affect a child’s confidence. I still grew up thinking that maybe I was not good enough.

Years went by,  I went to college, started working, fell in and out of love a couple times, started doing yoga, started meditating, travelled the world, made friends from every part of the world, met all sorts of amazing people and did a fair share of crazy things.

Somewhere along the journey, life — the biggest teacher of them all taught me that I am beautiful, both inside and outside. And nobody in the whole wide world can make me feel otherwise now. I realised that what others think of me mirrored what I thought about myself.

Beauty does not have to be about fair skin, make up or designer clothes. It is about that inner connection with ourselves. It is about being in love with our own amazing self. I realised that if I do not love myself for who I am, how can I expect anyone else to love me? It’s not difficult to see the beauty that lies in every human being. Like the few kind words from my cousin gave me the confidence, a few kind words to the people around us can make a huge difference.

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. We just need to learn to see that beauty. I hope that no other kid anywhere gets to feel that they are not beautiful. The world will be a happier place if we can all realise the beautiful souls that we are and not quantify beauty in terms of measures such as skin tone. I wish that, like me, people understand the meaning of true beauty so that they can be the shining stars that they were meant to be!

And “YOU” my dear, the one reading this blog right now, just know that ” YOU are Beautiful! “.  Pay it forward and tell at least one more soul how very beautiful they are. Let’s make this world a better place. What do you say?