What does beauty mean?
Being fair as milk, of course! Times are changing, so maybe that’s not how it is everywhere, but that’s what it still means in many parts of India. And I happen to be from one such family in Punjab. For my family, a fair skin tone is synonymous with beauty. For the longest period in my life, I let myself believe that it was, in fact, true. I still remember the taunts from my childhood about my dusky skin tone.
Why do Indians like having fair skin? My brain would understand the fascination if the fair skin provided some added advantages, such as inbuilt UV protection. But as far as I know, it doesn’t provide any special benefits. Is it because Indians want to copy foreigners? The sheer variety of fairness creams in the market and advertisements on television, show just how many Indians suffer from this fairness syndrome. While Caucasians love to get their skin tanned, 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 would have gone for a toss if not for my cousin. She would say that I was beautiful, just like Naomi Campbell, the English model. After all, I was dusky, slim, and very tall. Nobody else apart from her seemed to pay any attention to how a simple comment could affect a child’s confidence. I still grew up thinking that the colour of my skin was not good enough.
Years went by; I attended college, started working, fell in love multiple times, started doing yoga, started meditating, travelled the world, made friends from every part of the world, met all sorts of 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 in and out. And that nobody in the world can make me feel otherwise. 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 the inner connection with us. It is about being in love with our amazing self. I realised that if I do not love myself for who I am, I can’t expect anyone else to love me. It’s not difficult to see the beauty that lies in every human being. Like my cousin’s few kind words that saved my confidence from crumbling completely, a few kind words to the people around us can make a huge difference.
Beauty does lie in the eyes of the beholder. We just need to learn to see that beauty. The world will truly be a happier place if we realise that we are all beautiful and not quantify beauty. 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!
