Indian beauty etc etc
I've heard it rather often that we Indians have been gifted with good features and if luck plays a part - good complexion. I wouldn't like to touch on the rather touchy issue of skin colour bais that is rather rampant in this country. But yes, if you are fair and you are an Indian, most people would think you good looking just by the description (not the case always though, I assure you with some solid personal experience backing me on this one).

Nevertheless, this whole beauty thing came into focus with Miss India, Parvathy Omnakuttan making it to the First Runner Up position at Miss World. Now, Parvathy, I knew her briefly having spent a few months doing Lit at Mithibai years back, is firmly ensconced in her middle class Indian values and a certain down-to-earth-ness reflects strongly in her personality. Something very refreshing to see in beauty queens.

But the TOD (topic of discussion) is not really Parvathy, or how she cried with shock after missing the main crown, or her personal achievement in going from Mithibai to Miss World to ending the eight year dry run for this country, 'supposedly' filled with beautiful women, at the pageant.

My point is, I sometimes find the whole "Indian people (especially women) are the most beautiful people in the world" statement somewhat farcical simply because I've come to understand that the benchmark of this beauty is quite unrealistic.

Most people who say this, use Bollywood's bevy of beauties as their reference point. Not everyone back home has the looks or for that matter the means of maintaining the looks of an Aishwarya Rai, Preity Zinta or Priyanka Chopra and they certainly aren't the only kind of women you find here. Our country is one of immense, mind-boggling variety - so you have skin tones and features of all kinds and people from some north-eastern provinces have features so close to the Chinese that they are often considered foriegners in their own soil!

But despite all this variety, you still find a certain sameness in most bollywood beauties and beauty queens. Blame me if you think I haven't been noticing properly - but when did you find a real, dusky woman with a generous figure (yes, by the grace of god we're fairly flab-endowed people) dominate the beauty circles? Now all we get is boot cut, size zeroes....and the beauty ideal in India is all but Indian - Fair girls close to the S size and if she has light eyes - it's a bonus. I know of girls who've absolutely beautiful eyes in perfect shape (minus myopia) wear coloured lenses just because they think it's in...WHY?

Enough said...I'm kind of tiring hearing the beauty woes and practices of some girls around me and I don't understand why everyone is hell-bent on succumbing to a particular principle or notion of beauty. They say beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and if I was placed in the position of this invisible beholder who sets what's beautiful from what's not, I would say that beauty is undefinable and if you think yourself beautiful there is no need for any external validation. period.