Apr 21, 2002 12:14 PM
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(Updated Apr 21, 2002 12:35 PM)
- This is my 30th review and since 30 is not as significant a number as 50, I thought I will pick a topic that’s insignificant too, like this one.
Beauty in my eyes….
I have always believed that in the real world most of what is on display has a good and a bad component to it. The same applies to beauty as well. To find something or someone that’s just beautiful and nothing else is almost impossible(according to me). There has been a raging debate on this forum and outside it as to what beauty is, like most of you here I don’t have a very clear definition for beauty. According to the definitions in a dictionary beauty can be any of the following:
• The quality that gives pleasure to the mind or senses and is associated with such properties as harmony of form or color, excellence of artistry, truthfulness, and originality.
• A quality or feature that is most effective, gratifying, or telling;
• An outstanding or conspicuous example
When talking about beauty in human beings though, to me beauty is both external and internal. Beauty is as much a function of the body, as it is of the mind. To brand just internal beauty as true beauty and condemn external beauty as nothing at all, is being unfair and to some extent even hypocrisy . At the same time, the statement that beauty is only skin deep cannot be true at all(in any case most of the external beauty that’s on display today is at least half an inch above the skin level!).
So am I all for beauty contests… well not really and I have my reasons.
First of all can anyone quantify beauty, internal or external…? If that’s not possible how can there be a contest to judge who has got the greater of an un-quantifiable virtue(if beauty can be called a virtue that is).
Secondly most beauty contests are based only on external beauty, in that case aren’t we really rewarding individuals for something that God has given them(okay if you don’t believe in God then nature and if you don’t believe in that either “the Parents”) and not something that’s come out of their own hard work or efforts.(I am also aware that even if God/Nature/Parents give beauty to a person, some work has to go into maintaining it. and thanks to all those cosmetics and health clubs and personality development centers)
The final choice in beauty contests are often made by asking the contestants a few questions. This is supposedly to test their intelligence, poise and humane qualities. But more often than not, this ends up becoming a farce. You have people standing on stage with several thousands of audience watching them and blurting out highly moralistic words that drown in the champagne that flows after the contest is over. “I will heal the world” “I will make a difference” “I will stand up for women and womanhood” are the basic themes on which most of these answers are based. I personally have never been aware of any beauty pageant winner, who set aside her life for these purposes…. But seriously if that was their ambition they should have been in nunneries not at a beauty pageant, so it’s rather stupid of the judges and us to take these answers at its face value and choose the best beauty.
* A thing of beauty is a joy for an hour….
* Someone once said that a thing of beauty is a joy for ever but in the present case scenario I think “for ever” can be changed to an hour(or two hours in case of Indians, as that is the approximate length of an average Bollywood flick). Beauty pageants sure, are some sort of a face hunt for movie stars in this country, not much more.
On a more serious note there are so many beauty contests that a winner hogs the limelight just for a passing period. After that you have the next beauty… * Thank God for so many beautiful people *. There is not just a Miss Universe or a Miss World; there are Miss Ramnagars and Miss Karimnagars too.
A true beauty need not be a joy for ever, in fact not even an hour, if you can give 5 minutes of happiness or relief to someone who is need of it, that it self is a magical act of beauty.
Beauty lies in….
….eyes of a beholder… well that’s only in a proverb, in today’s world beauty lies in a developing country that has a vast and ever expanding market for cosmetic products, television rights, consumer consumables and durables. How else could one explain the dominance of countries like India, Columbia, Venezuela etc in the beauty contests that too in just the last decade? Suddenly are these countries producing beauties that they did not 10 years ago.?
Some more issues:
That the criteria for a beautiful woman has to be Miss and not Mrs. is slightly off putting; I might be branded as a traditionalist, but I maintain that one of the greatest gifts of being a woman is the ability to bear children, which fortunately or unfortunately men can’t. Then how come a woman with children, is not considered for beauty contests(mainstream ones I mean, there are several so called “mock” beauty pageants for married women, fat women etc).
Secondly, is beauty a prerogative of just the young, my grand mom was a beautiful woman, most grand moms are, why is she not eligible to be contestant. Here, like most members I would also say that if only external beauty is taken into consideration, a beautiful person will cease to beautiful after she turns 60 and isn’t that cruel.?
Thirdly I am a firm believer in the fact that * beauty is individualistic *. There can’t be a global or national yardstick for it. How then is it possible to mass produce beauty by training young women to “walk the walk and talk the talk”… is giving up your natural self and adapting a tutored self, way to find your beauty.?
If I had my way….
…. and had the money, power, resources and the moral courage to conduct a beauty contest, it would not be a week long affair, where beauty is judged by the how small your waist is or how broad your bust is, rather it would be on the basis of how small your hate-mentality is and how broad your mind is.
It would not be on how well you answer theoretical questions thrown at you by select judges(* who judges how sensible these are by the way… all it takes is two good cricket matches or one big movie to be eligible to be a judge *), but on the basis of how you have answered life’s practical challenges.
It would not be on the basis of how much magic you can whip up on the ramp, but on the basis of how much magic you can bring to your own life and that of others around you and probably a Mother Teresa will win it not Aishwarya( I still kept the title within India, LOL )
- But then since I don’t have the money, power, resources and least of all moral courage, I will let the ones who have it conduct pageants the way they wish to, and look forward to it from purely for the entertainment and visual appeal(I wont be a hypocrite and say that I am not attracted to feminine beauty - external or internal)… and keep myself happy… after all that’s the beauty of life… being happy with what you have(or in this case what you don’t have)!
