BEAUTY:OUTER OR INNER????

The other day,I was reading this novel ( Anything For You,Maam,by Tushar Raheja),and all was fine till I reached the point where he recollects his first meeting with his to-be love ( will not use the word ‘ girlfriend’ here,as any reader of the book will quite easily comprehend!),Shreya..and the same stereotype ‘ She had beautiful hair,eyes touched up with the slightest hint of kaajal on them’so on and so forth.In short-this was another ‘ pretty’ heroine..Then this question came into my overactive, evercontemplating, inquisitive mind-why cant any heroine of any novel be bespectacled, moderately fat ( or atleast overweight),and hair neatly oiled and plaited?And why does the heroine have to have kohl-rimmed eyes?As many beauty analysts will tell,kohl doesn’t exactly suit everyone.Its just this sort of fad that every girl blindly follows ( remember the 90s,when the eyeliner was oh so in fad,and made every girl look either anorexic or malnourished.).And what about those poor girls whose tradition doesn’t allow them to apply kohl on their eyes without the presence of a bindi ( believed to ward off evil spirits),no matter how gorgeous they look with it?I mean,girls cant go on putting a bindi with denims,can they?But this is another story,which will occupy another post…..
Coming back from that minor( yet extremely important) digression,look at any book-FPS( Neha was beautiful,with waist length hair,left open…),One Night…( Ditto Priyanka,minus the long hair!) and blah blah blah….why doesn’t the heroine ever have a bad hair day,or acne ( okay,acne is too much..but a pimple would suffice!)??Yes,I must admit that Indian women are one of the most gorgeous women on the face of earth,but we do have anomalies….well,why isn’t a Konkona Sen as important as an Aishwarya Rai??Isnt Does this mean that girls who are plump,have bad texture of hair,and eyes minus kohl but moderately good looking,will not get the much coveted postion of a heroine in a novel, or do they just remain ‘ good friends ‘ with the hero??( I m sure I am probably being labeled as a ‘ spoilsport’ by all the male readers at this point!!)And if all is said about the heroines,then wait-I’ve not even started on the heroes.In both the above mentioned books,the hero( shyam and Hari;well I am actually reluctant to call Hari the ‘ hero’ of FPS!!) is depicted as this confused, fumbling,totally lost ,but nevertheless sweet guy.I really pity the poor Indian man-he is shown to be weak everywhere-first on television,where his whole world revolves around two woman –his mom and his wife…the more similarities they have ,the better,but again here the wife is as different as the mom as cheese is from chalk!!And now in the novels!!( I must put in a good word for Tushar Raheja;atleast Tejas was not a Shyam or a Hari,even though he showed a few characteristics!!)
And you know the strange part-this,I have seen , is a phenomenon seen in mostly books authored by Indian authors!! For example in this novel ,the hero falls for this heroine who is a size ten( as opposed to the model size 6.Or wait a minute,,was it a size 2?? ),has dry red hair,and is bespectacled with thick framed specs…!!!The hero was just an ordinary average looking guy .And they both end up being happily married!!!
So this comes up to another facet of the Indian man ( this is one topic which will take up not one,but many posts in a blog!!)-they are totally obsessed with the physical aspect of a woman and have considerations as to how her persona is!!
But,you know what,this is also a result of the average Indian mentality.We teach our girls methods to enhance their outer beauty which is totally impermenent,but not once have we taught them to enhance their inner beauty which is permanent.Not once do we think telling a girl how to behave in a pooja,but we think ten times before deciding which sari to purchase for the occasion……………….
Well,there are exceptions in every case.And coming back from another digression ( god!I seem to be getting into a lot of them in this post!!) to the initial topic,I cannot name a book though,but I do know men personally who rely more on the eternal inner beauty of a woman rather than the external and I must say that I am really grateful to have seen such men in my life;they are almost an extinct species now….which shows another important point-let facts be fact and fiction be fiction!!!!