The Beauty Ripple

Society has raised many people to believe that we should define beauty and intelligence based on a secular ideal . That to be considered attractive you must be so thin you no longer menstruate .They often tell us that we need to be this ideal to be happy and successful  . But we don't . 

The following is just my own interpretation of how I think this should be challenged on a large scale . All my life , media has idolized those women who have proportions that defy natural limitations . The large breasts , tiny waist , the long silky hair and legs that " go on for miles" .  Basically a hairy ant . Oh I correct myself , hair is deemed something taboo if not on your head . Therefore all my ideas of what beautiful was , never really matched what mattered : me and the people around me . There was never a popular idea that appealed to a short , talkative Indian girl , what could I (and many others like me ) find that was similar to us in pop culture ? 

In history , for ages at a time , society idolized different ( also impossible ) body shaped . The overly sized sculptures of women with almost obese bodies , that symbolized fertility , often occurred in many ancient societies around the world .  The Venus of Willendorf ( found in Austria ) is one such figure with large breasts and a large abdomen , an ideal of beauty at the time .  The Venus de Milo is almost the opposite . It is a Greek sculpture that represented the idea of perfect proportion where all sculptures had similar characteristics and believed in perfection .  Both were considered beautiful . 

Nowadays , it is the look of synthetic beauty that strives to tell the younger generation that they simply are not good enough . That we need to eat less , be taller , emaciated and only then , will we be beautiful . Yes , there are new trends of using pus sized models and promoting new ideals of " pretty " . But they do so little to help when there are about 50 television shows about changing your outfit to change your life , or plastic surgery shows to say that you aren't perfect as you are , you should change . It would be a welcome change to see a beauty pageant with girls who weren't stereotypically pretty or to see The Most Beautiful Woman in the World be someone who didn't have fake breasts . Something that isn't Ideal . 

  It does not help that many adults encourage this form of thinking . Often , I encounter older people ( often relatives ) who will tell a little girl ( who is a perfectly healthy and pretty child) that she needs to go on a diet because she is getting fat or that she must stay out of the sun or she will get dark . And yet , no one challenges them ( I'm prevented from saying something particularly caustic by my mother who believes very much in maintaining respect for ones elders . I do concede  that respect is important but it is a 2 way street . ) ( also I've been told that in the same breath by those people and therefore also cannot be rude because , again , my mother is a force of nature I wouldn't contend with , but who would rather tell them off herself in a polite manner ... Thus defeating the purpose of it all ) . My parents feel that I take those comments far too seriously , that the little cousin will be fine because they don't know what I know  . People think she'll be ok but ...  But she won't . I know because I was her once . 

And now this gets all too personal when I intended to be very argumentative and objective ... But yes , I was that little girl once too . I think it was around my eleventh or twelfth birthdays when someone said , " You've gotten fat hey , shame you're so pretty otherwise ."  and if memory serves me correctly it was the same set of people who keep doing it now . It may have been just that as a catalyst and many other things that did contribute but for a long , long time after , I grew to hate myself . I hated that I wasn't tiny and fair . It grew to be something that may or may not have been an eating disorder at the time but I would starve myself and then eat and then purge ( and oh no , I sound like a headcase but that's what happened for about a year or so , erratically) and cry . Because I wasn't what society wanted to see . I was a bookworm , who liked to talk , who was short and who had curves . I cried a lot during that time because I didn't understand why . I didn't know why I wanted to look different because before that , I was happy with me . I was happy with who I was . This may be far too confessional but I think that because it happened a long while ago ,it doesn't hurt as much to talk about why I get angry when people tell my little 7 year old cousin that she is fat and that I want to tell them just how disgusted I feel because of their words . They make me want to be excessively brutal with my words so they understand the impact if their narrow minds on an impressionable child . 

I cry every time I revisit that because it's like it happened yesterday . I cry because I wish more was done to show young girls and young women that they are beautiful , that they are in fact more than just a face . You say that we are a civilized and modern society , tell me how ? Tell me how when such narrow views are placed on one of the the most undefinable things in the universe : beauty . The fact that we are alive , is a thing of beauty . When we see a plant grow , we should see how intricate and dynamic a group of cells form the basis of our food chains .  We should find our own ideas of beauty , not what is on the cover of the latest magazine that is dictated by a small group of people who never leave their hotels or villa's . 

If we said , to the next girl or woman we saw , that they are beautiful beings , that they are worth something  , maybe we could begin to change a life , that a life can impact the people around them . And if the ripples are big enough , we could impact our society as a whole . 

Finding A Suitable Boy ... And no , this isn't about an actual boy. But about my first love

Not everyone remembers how or where they found their favourite book , some don't even know what that book is . It's that one book you could read over and over again but never tire  of the story that rests in it's soft pages.   For me , it was when I was 11 in Grade 6 ( being a  December baby , I spend most years being the last to hit the appropriate age for my grade  )  and the book that became my most beloved was "A Suitable Boy " by Vikram Seth  . A heavy and large novel that often (as the author warned in the poem that was on the front pages ) I did sprain my wrists many times carrying the immense volume around. 

I recall finding the book , hidden amongst the various papers and files of old electricity bills and family photographs . High up in a cupboard in the kitchen , one that I could reach by getting onto the cold counter and holding tightly onto the bars of the window , all the bric-a-brac that couldn't be thrown away or stored elsewhere had lain dormant for a while . Now to understand why I had ascended to the heights of this cupboard , it must be stated that I was searching for a comic book I thought I had lost . I had an insatiable appetite for Archie comics , at that age it was to read something not so serious . They had taken pride of place among my classics and books about war or history or something altogether too depressing when one needed a laugh . So I went on a hunt to find a few that I thought had disappeared . 

It must've been summer , because I remember the day being chilly and cloudy skies that threatened to dampen the freshly cut grass in the neighbours yard . So I dragged a chair over to the cupboard(being my last resort as nowhere else yielded success ) and climbed up . I love the smell of paper, old paper to be specific . Not that musty scent but that warm aroma that seems to smell like sharpened pencils , so this cupboard was filled with these smells and also of the glittering  pine-cone smell of Christmas decorations that were in a box in the corner . Well I used to think it glittered as the tinsel peeped out of the box . I digress , anyway , so I sifted through the cupboard with one hand (the other clinging to the window bar like a monkey of sorts ) and after a long time I noticed a thick book I had ignored for a while . I had read one or two other books that my father (who is also a voracious reader) had left up there , but they were Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy . Not really what I was looking for , but nevertheless I hauled this large book out . The cover was of a river and a boat with two silhouettes on it and the pages were the most delicate and thin I have ever felt . Almost see through and incredibly smooth, the ink stood out dark and rich to the touch. I should have read it immediately ... But I didn't . 

Instead I read a bleak drama about a woman who decided to move ahead in life and mine gold after her husband died ... And then I re-read Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw ( My Fair Lady in theatre ) and eventually I got to reading this book that would keep in enthralled for days on end . I've learned that the beauty of a good book , is not merely the first page ( because I will never just read the first page ) but the first two or three chapters . However , this book had a first page that leaped  out at me .. And soon I was taken to a wedding in India .. 

That is the mark of a great book . I won't dwell on the rest of the book because there's too much and it's too real to be boiled down into a quick summation. At its core is a love story , not completely atypical but not your cookie-cutter boy-meets-girl . There are extracts I will read in isolation or maybe I have a whim to relive the entire book . Invariably it is the latter . 

I'm not saying , "Go read it !!" because all taste does differ (however I highly recommend it ) but find a book , any book , that you can read again and again , finding something new each time . And find a book that speaks to your core , regardless of how abstract the relation may be.  The solace of a good book surpasses any other distraction when you most need to find comfort , 

Flea market melee

I seem to be a cathartic blogger and will therefore follow this trend because , well it's what I do best really . As previously mentioned , I harbor a special affection for my maternal grandparents who took care ( and still do ) of my little sister and I , I feel that this is a result of the plethora of memories they created with me especially . I've mentioned my Appa before , but his wife (and my dear grandmother ) Ma has not been as present in these stories . 

Her hands have always been the hardest working and the softest to hold , they fed and nurtured my infant wiles and threatened to tell my mother ( but seldom did ) if we misbehaved . She is a seamstress and her hands created many dresses that mark milestones in my life . From the dress at my christening that draped  my newborn skin to the playsuits that were muddied . And most recently an exquisite dress for my sixteenth ... Something only she would know how to make because she's one of the few people who understand me . They all mark little stitches in my life , and her presence there . 

So , Ma used to sew lots of dresses and sell them at a Flea market on Sundays , a common anecdote of my father's is that on the day I was born ( my uncle who manned the stall that day ) they had never sold as much before . It is usually followed by jokes of my adventures in this flea market . For as long as I remember , I would wake up in the early hours of morning to go with my grandparents and watch the empty lot slowly rise into a little metropolis of tents and gazebos . I think memories of this time are most firmly illustrated by food , of the steam rising and filling the already humid air with a whirlwind of aroma . The chewy corn sprinkled with masala that always gave me a slight tummy ache but was a welcome treat , of the hot slap chips ( my father often jokes that I was bluffed by the chips to wake up so early) smothered in cheap ( but often the tastiest ) tomato sauce that was presented in a paper packet almost transparent with oil . And funnily enough , the umbrella shaped ice cream made by a lady who died long before I began to appreciate the delicate flavours  presented in her icy cones . It was a lime and strawberry that was my favorite , and I sometimes long for that old sensation . 

It was in flea markets where I first fell in love  with books . Appa used to buy me Archie comic books and copies of second hand books . My copy of Black Beauty was ( and for some reason I remember this with precise clarity )  purchased on the same day I was bought a baby doll who had a lemon knitted dress ( who you could feed and she peed water ) from an old flame-haired woman who had no front teeth . That and many books and Garfield comic books were bought from this woman and I still have them lurking in the shelves .  My love of books has extended throughout my life and in many ways I must thank those stalls with piles of books with yellowed pages . 

The reason I was reminded of these events was that today , I went to a craft flea market and saw all these things , almost unchanged ( just a different time and place ) . We need to revisit things more , the tiny things that could revive old joys ( and yes I do acknowledge that I've previously regretted losing some old joys but things like this always live on for me ) . To see the colours and hear the vendors offering you a good deal and the omnipresent music from a stall that stocks CD's no one listens to  . These are all the ingredients that make me smile . And they remind me of how special my Ma is to me , for taking me to the flea market . 

Mulberries and memories of springtime long past

You begin to realize you've started living , when you stop trying to find a life and let all the sensations flood in . Often losing yourself , then stopping to wonder where all the  time went , is the best way to find what really makes you happy . Our best way of gleaning this is really but looking at what makes time seem to fly by fastest and leaves you sad that your time spent doing something or being with someone  is over .

My childhood ( only recently passed ) is a kaleidoscope of memories that sweep me away to a time when nothing mattered more than feeling the mud between your toes and being a child who would hide among the flowers making up stories about the clouds. I will always be grateful that I was blessed to truly have an amazing childhood . And I put that down to my parents and maternal grandparents .

I was born  and raised in a humid green place ,  wedged between the sea and a crown of mountains that we would drive to in winter to see the tops go white with snow in the distance . My grandparents have a house near a river that also passes mine downstream , and growing up , I spent my days in the huge garden filled with more  herbs and vegetables than I care to recall but you could see this lazy brown river flowing past . I believe that the reason I'm such a tactile person is because I loved squelching in the moist dark soil ( with bright green gumboots ) while my Appa ( my mothers father who taught me to love stories and to love the beauty of Gods creation in nature and animals , well in his own way ) went about planting mint and collecting mangoes from the heavy trees . My soul began to thread together under a canopy of trees and vines of bean plants that were rich with red and pink jewels in the shells .

One of my fondest memories are of picking the tiny flowers of pea plants and of the yellow mustard plants that stood tall . It saddens me that now , the flowers that bring me joy are not those simple blooms that are not presumptuous or found in bouquets at the florists .  That I used to find butterflies more beautiful than any dress , or that eating a mango with the sticky juice running down my arm  used to be my greatest ecstasy , makes me  realize just how much has changed.  That the mulberries I used to eat in wild abandon now posed something else , much more sinister .

The ancient Greek tale of Pyramus and Thisbe was said to be William Shakespeare's inspiration for Romeo and Juliet , a tale of two star crossed lovers who died at the base of a mulberry tree , staining the white berries to red and then black . Such a romance was cast over this simple berry , a mystic feeling that the bookworm in me craved  . That and the lure of silkworms as a seven year old . I had a shoebox of ten silkworms that I nurtured and spoke to until they receded into golden cocoons . I cried when I released them back into the mulberry tree ( note I had bought them at school ) , watching the fat moths flutter into an uncertain world so unlike the warm shoebox . All this became little threads I associated with childhood . Of collecting ripened mulberries until my fingers were stained purple and the finger marks on my clothes were left to stain . I had a white cotton handkerchief ( you know , those little fabric squares people used , and yes this is me patronizing you ) with yellow flowers embroidered in the corner . I used to squeeze the juice of the berries to dye it in a rudimentary manner for a few weeks . Watching the purple fade to indigo and eventually a sky blue.

The point of all this is that I didn't realize my cocoon had broken until yesterday , when I spent all morning writhing on the carpet with stomach pain that could only be explained by the large glass of blended mulberries .  I had red mulberry poisoning , apparently . Where I had eaten too many unripened red berries ( the sap is slightly toxic , but not too much ) and it a moment of realization that eventually the things that made you happy once , cease .

No longer did the sun kissed berries hold the magic of before , they were not as sweet , and the stain on my fingers no longer bright . All that was left was a memory of a robins egg -blue hanky . But the little bird has long since flown away...











Springtime was marked by the blooming of all the flowers and the arrival of berries . Strawberries , blueberries but especially ( and most beloved ) mulberries . There are many trees in the area , and three outside our house , and every spring they became heavy with the white and pink berries that were too young and sour to eat , the red berries that were tart but edible if you felt brave ... Lastly  the ripened purple berries that stained your fingers and lips with a color more red than any lipstick I will ever possess .

Today , after church , we drove in and I noticed ( after a long time ) that the tree was more red than green leaves .  A cloud of joy reminiscent of  infancy  descended as my  velvet covered pumps roamed through the ground covered in dark berries that glistened in the dappled sunlight .

A series of many brackets and digressions

The subject of my discomfort (or rather the many subjects ) in past month or so , that have drained me ,are finally over . Well unofficially at least , I do have a paper or two left (hardly significant ones , if that makes sense ) so to me , exams are over . And now , time stretches before me and so does the blueberry muffin that happily sits on a saucer next to me . And for some strange reason , I feel like some weird bystander to my life where I can hear a narration but wonder why this voice sounds so calm , so on top of things . This strange thought occurred to me last night at about 23:30 (according to the clock that was nearby ) when I sat in a rub of lukewarm water , shivering and furiously shampooing my hair . The night before a big exam and I was washing my hair , for the second time that day , and close to midnight . The logic is clearly not there . But then , is anything really illogical when you are panicking about the most frivolous thing and a very serious thing , simultaneously . Obviously I mixed my priorities up . The exam meant less to me , than the fact that my whole scalp (freakishly and for the secoond time in my life actually ) had broken out into "violent" dandruff . Stress-ruff I think it should be called . Which , is weird for someone like me who has an oil rig ( I reckon the issue of high oil prices could be solved by my forehead alone ) for skin . Obviously , someone up There has a sense of irony and humor . I mean , obviously ... But I'm not complaining . I mean , it's one of those things you have to have happen , to realize how utterly stupid I can be . And , I'm actually quite shocked at how moronic I must have looked and how helpless I felt . Its this weird sensation that nothing makes sense . It was late and I wanted my bed , I wanted the words on the page to actually make some sense and more than anything , I wanted time to just .... Slow down . And as petty as the problem of an exam and bad hair may seem , in the grand scheme of life , when you're crying in that bathtub , it's pretty serious . Its the impending fear of failure , that you're not good enough , that everything might just crumble down . I had never felt so unprepared , so it was unwelcome that my hair ( which I had cut over the weekend) had suddenly become Narnia (when Lucy first stumbled into that closet , personally I think she just found one of those closets that belong to those heiresses and the owner happened to be in it . With her illegal pet lion ) {and again , I go off on a tangent } . Anyway , the point is , hats are vital in ones life . Unless you go to my school , where uniform infringement akin to killing an infant with dimples (apparently dimples render them perfect , also I have a sister with dimples so I've been told all my life about how amazing dimples are , let's be honest ... It's a muscle defect ) . And the fact that I couldn't really hide this outbreak , was mortifying . Oh fickle I've become , it must be all this learning . It must be the regurgation of the constant garbage we're fed about being a certain way all the time . I should seriously consider becoming some form of a social outcast so I don't have to care about it all .... But caring is actually a lot less effort than constantly having to justify myself and all that . Not that I mind , I enjoy a good arguement regarding why being Atypical , is so much more rewarding than being some sad copy . But when exhausted , it's frightfully trying to explain to the goon addressing me that enunciation of words , does not constitute me trying to conform to some "other" race, but merely me doing justice to the education I was blessed with . But to try to explain that concept to some (and there really is no other word for this ) idiot who feels that throwing slang and obscenities , means he has "swag " ( whatever that may be ) . If I'm being honest , I pity , nay , I look down upon those girls who feel that what they need ( and I stres the word ) a man who has adopted this deranged , lunatic idea of what class is . Not good manners and values but the they wear their pants at their ankles , they swear like sailors and refer to their "women " ( note there are multiple partners ) as female dogs . It's a pet peeve , but again I have digressed into a puddle cottonwool and orange concentrate (another story for another time ) . In Essence , when in doubt , wash it out . Go to school where you can hide your bad hair days and lastly , for God's sake , don't fall into that trap of trying to be "swag" ( I seriously need someone to explain that to me m it's slightly moronic at the moment ) . So after many brackets and distractions , I've reached a very half-baked conclusion ....

Yes, it's been a while ... I can explain

Okay , so I'm sure I've said at some point that the procrastinator in me is terrible and often neglects the important things in life ... Wel this time I actually have a good excuse . First , life (in all her wonder and mystery ) had decided to distract me for quite a while . A good few months to be exact . And also (this is the real reason ) my computer kept crashing therefore I couldn't blog even if I wanted to . Which I did , because I usually have something to say about ... Well everything . Anyway for the past few months I've (as expected ) changed . I find myself wondering if that's a good thing and on the whole , yes . I like to think I've grown in a way that makes me more aware of life and those who are in my life . Right now , midyear exams are upon me and I am coping . Well , that's what I tell myself . Where I am from (the southern hemisphere to be specific ) winter has begun to slowly creep in . In the summery city I inhibit , it is merely a chill with temperatures most would consider quite hot . There's always a sort of magic in winter . As dull as it may seem , it is in the dying of the old (once so beautiful and fresh ) that makes way for something new . Many describe winter as a slump in ones life . That one must be going through trials and hardship in the winter . I disagree . The winter of ones life , is where you find what you truly are . The strength you possess and the newfound appreciation for Life in its summer , spring and autumn . The evergreen relationships become clear when winter arrives . Those common summer saplings wither away at the first sign of frost . It's only after the winter gas melted away that the (hardy and true ) seeds you had sown before (when life was still warm and relaxed , not much effort put in really ) appear . Be it with friends , family , work or any aspect of your life . You realize that the ones you thought you could shelter under in a storm , weren't really there after all . And (unexpectedly and quite serendipitous ) you see the people in your life who are there, evergreen and true . Winter is also when you gather your resources and just slow down . Obviously (emotionally and blog-wise ) I've had a bit of a long winter ... Cue cynical laughter . Now , to digress on a totally different note (because one can only drag a winter themed analogy for so long ) I have decided to embrace my status as an Atypical Indian (in case the name of the blog did not give this away , I am Indian ) . Now , what is an Atypical Indian ? Well , one that doesn't intend on being : a doctor , engineer , accountant , nuclear physicist or computer whizz . Yes , all stereotypical jobs , but it's kinda true . When one says that they actually want something else as a career choice , God forbid some older relative hears you . Now I get that it's all about trying to create a generation of successful people and that they want the best for you . But my question is , why can't we dream of a success in a way that does not require us to be maths boffins or scientifically perfect people ? Why aren't the dreamers , poets , creators of things (or even those who are gifted in other ways , not nessecarily artistic , just different ) prized if they achieve brilliance , like the others , if they receive mediocrity ? I fully understand that they are on completely different levels , but why chastise a child for being weaker at things you deem to be superior ? And then downplay their strengths ? Back to my flippant term for myself , an atypical indian is one who defies the norms expected and actually doesn't give a hoot if the aunts from across the road's daughter is a Physics whizz or If Uncle So-and-so's son is "such a lovely child " (regardless of his actual qualities as a person . But because he knows how to fix your computer if it crashes . They're probably great people (more than often , not haha ) and well done to them for being hardworking smart people . But why don't you talk about that girl who became a successful performer ? Or that boy who ended up starting a design company that made millions ? Yes , we should encourage excellence . But maybe for once , look at how each person has a streak of brilliance and instead of clouding it with your expectations of each and everyone of them to be Typical , why not polish that ? . So for now ( and the questionable amount or time that I may disappear to ) I shall let you insert an inspirational afterthought [here]

My castle in the clouds has crumbled ...

Guilt has finally found me , after a month of ignoring it , I realised with much chagrin that I've haven't had any introspection whatsoever for the past month or so . I think the philosophical side of me only awakens from her slumber during the academic year . December , presents an escape . An escape from the reality that is often so cold and bleak that we really just crave crawling under the duvet and just ignoring the rest of the world .

I build a castle in the clouds , a lethargic , blissfully ignorant place where nothing really bothers me for too long . I had a rather big castle this past December . It was a month of revelry after the exam period , my birthday included . This continuous cycle of parties , celebration , care-free days spent absolutely idle , has finally come to a close . It was only today , ( after three weeks of being back at school ) that my castle , began to crumble .

And it sat on my chest , heavy with reminders of responsibility , practicality and most of all a reminder that I needed to take up the plough again . Like I said , my castle's walls are disappearing and suddenly I have lost that sunshine that seemed to emanate from within . 

I had to breathe in deeper , just to get past that leaden lump in my throat , the struggle to open my eyes as blinking became a task that seemed to be arbitrary . My mind was a wasteland that had experienced a winter , rather like those one finds in the Northern Hemisphere . I stumbled around , searching for something to salvage . Any glimmer of a thought that had once held meaning .

What had I turned into ? Where was the deeper person ? I tapped my wrist , straining to hear if there was a hollow sound  . Thankfully , I heard some substance and my hope was somewhat restored . We cannot remain in our castles , as perfect as they may seem . Our imperfect lives struggle to maintain this peace . For a month or so ,hiding under the duvet in my castle in the clouds  had seemed like an ideal  plan . Now its time to kick off the covers , and pull down those castle walls . Because on the horizon I see , a storm beginning to brew , and one cannot fight the storms January brings ,  in your PJ's ... Something more is needed , from your soul and your body .