The crazy concept of beauty

Such is the craze for beauty that today people avail a large variety of services to achieve their ideas of it. From countless products promising to boost your confidence, landing you the perfect, hotshot job, to the hordes of other services offered to make you stand out. Such is the pervasion that it’s hard to find a natural, chemically untreated soul around. People get their hair ‘treated’ with chemicals to make them super smooth, shiny. They prep their hair on a day to day basis by ironing them, curling them etc. Because natural, slightly rough, wild hair is too bad to live with. Such is the state that you cannot be sure if the next person you compliment about something has got it artificially.

It’s funny and sad that we just can’t live with our flaws. Appearances mean everything to us. We need to have the perfect glossy, smooth hair; flawless, glowing skin (and let’s not forget Indians’ crazy obsession with fair skin). We look up to film stars and celebrities like they are gods and goddesses. We look up to their ‘perfection’ on screen as reality. We strive for that. We chant their names even more for how beautiful they are. We criticize the ones we deem fat, or not appropriately dressed at the airport after an 11 hour flight. And we get crazier when they seem too perfect after gym. Media’s obsession with the appearance of celebrities is insane. But somewhere they see that there’s an audience as fickle minded as the mob in Julius Caesar, cheering someone one second, booing them when they don’t meet their fabricated ideas of beauty.

We preach anyone who is ‘hot’, even if the guy is a criminal. And it’s not only about our looks, it’s also about what others think of us. Going to certain cafes, pubs to project a certain ‘cool’ image, even if it is against your very core. The whole situation is astounding. And very few among us have the courage to not give in to this madness, to not conform, to be unapologetically themselves. Cheers to those brave, beautiful souls!