The beauty myth

The injustice to Indian beauty does not end there. It quite literally begins, if you happen to be amongst the much-envied 29-odd finalists for the so-called prestigious contest. Experts work overtime to ensure that you begin to look and feel like aWestern woman within a few months flat.

Your limbs, hips and waist go for a trimming process through exercise and gymnasium regimens. Your diction, your attire, everything is moulded in a way that you acquire universal (read Western) appeal. Remember, you have to show off your thin arms, expose those lanky legs and reveal your recently chiselled shoulders in a way so graceful and natural that the platform of international beauty pageants becomes a cakewalk for you.

And of course, you are taught to give impromptu replies that blend philosophy with ultra-modernity to show that you are a woman of substance. It doesn’t matter if you have the gift of the gab or not. Because, beware, it is those one-liners that often form the thin line between triumph and defeat.

In short, you are forced to look beautiful apparently as per the dictates of some international marketing requirements. Otherwise, why is the accent so much on beauty by make-up and not on natural beauty and grace? A recent example was the Miss Indiacontest which were held in Pune.

Puneites saw these 29 young women without make-up while they were rehearsing and working out before the event and, quite frankly, many would not have fetched a second glance if they were walking past you, incognito. Or maybe you would have looked at them only because they were tall.

And then we saw them with the make-up, the jewellery and designer outfits on the d-day! That it made a real difference to their outlook was one thing. But that they all resembled assembly line productions was what distressed me because they were being paraded as Indian beauties. Bah!

Admittedly, Sushmita Sen and Aishwarya Rai are two beautiful Indian women who also happened to meet the required international benchmark. But you cannot have an annual output on these lines by hiring modern sculptors to work on raw material that often defies Western norms.

The Indian beauty is unique and God has packaged her in variegated moulds. She cannot be defined in the thin and tall’ slot only. Thegeographical diversity of India provides for some stunning vignettes of a woman, each so different and appealing depending on where she hails from. From Kashmir toKanyakumari and from Arunachal Pradesh to Kutch, you have different facets of her beauty. Sometimes it is her beautiful eyes that spell wonder, sometimes it is her lovely complexion that is alluring or sometimes it is her dusky skin or her intelligence and almost always it is her warm heart that sparks interest in the beholder.

So pray, how can you frame rigid rules of height and weight if you have to choose an appropriate Miss India’? Maybe it would be more relevant to term such a contest as Miss Cosmopolitan India.’ And hope that someone really wakes up to the cause and hosts a Miss Real India’ contest. Howzzat?