How important is it to be beautiful? When I was a child, my parents told me that it was not very important. It was more important to be good.
As I grew up and in school, from the ninth standard on wards, it suddenly became very important. My school friends made me feel very ordinary. I was not bad looking. I was very fair and that is like winning half the battle in India. But I was short and plump. I had regular features but had to wear a pair of hideous black rimmed spectacles, which robbed me of any beauty that I had.
My school friends would be rapturous over the beauty of one girl in the class who was tall and had blue eyes. Light eyes were considered to be the heights of beauty. And since very few Indian girls have light eyes, she was the only beauty in my class.
How I longed to be beautiful like her! I was good in my studies, but somehow that paled in front of such good looks. I had nothing but my academics to fall back on. I was not rich. I developed an inferiority complex.
The very reason one goes to school, was given little importance. The girls won huge cups for sports. A beauty contest was held and the girl who won the show also came back holding a big trophy. I was given a small silver band pinned onto my blouse. It could hardly be seen.
In college too the beautiful girls had all the fun. All the boys would be chasing them. The few boys who looked at me were not very appealing. So my complex went from bad to worse.
Luckily, I took up a professional course, and I moved around in a sari. People started taking notice of me, which gave me some confidence.
After this, it was time for marriage. Once again my looks took on primary importance. Arranged marriages give a lot of importance to beauty. People assured me that since I was not that good looking I shouldn't be too fussy. I chose a very ordinary man who was not as educated as i was.
I had an unhappy marriage but that's another story.
Beautiful women get married to famous men. I have yet to see someone famous marrying an ordinary looking woman. So beauty is important. And though it is important to be good, average looking is not good enough.
.
As I grew up and in school, from the ninth standard on wards, it suddenly became very important. My school friends made me feel very ordinary. I was not bad looking. I was very fair and that is like winning half the battle in India. But I was short and plump. I had regular features but had to wear a pair of hideous black rimmed spectacles, which robbed me of any beauty that I had.
My school friends would be rapturous over the beauty of one girl in the class who was tall and had blue eyes. Light eyes were considered to be the heights of beauty. And since very few Indian girls have light eyes, she was the only beauty in my class.
How I longed to be beautiful like her! I was good in my studies, but somehow that paled in front of such good looks. I had nothing but my academics to fall back on. I was not rich. I developed an inferiority complex.
The very reason one goes to school, was given little importance. The girls won huge cups for sports. A beauty contest was held and the girl who won the show also came back holding a big trophy. I was given a small silver band pinned onto my blouse. It could hardly be seen.
In college too the beautiful girls had all the fun. All the boys would be chasing them. The few boys who looked at me were not very appealing. So my complex went from bad to worse.
Luckily, I took up a professional course, and I moved around in a sari. People started taking notice of me, which gave me some confidence.
After this, it was time for marriage. Once again my looks took on primary importance. Arranged marriages give a lot of importance to beauty. People assured me that since I was not that good looking I shouldn't be too fussy. I chose a very ordinary man who was not as educated as i was.
I had an unhappy marriage but that's another story.
Beautiful women get married to famous men. I have yet to see someone famous marrying an ordinary looking woman. So beauty is important. And though it is important to be good, average looking is not good enough.
.
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