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The world is truly biased in favour of who is traditionally considered beautiful, offering them far more opportunities than if they were not.
Eight years back, a friend of mine pondered over how difficult the world was for people who were not good-looking. She told me I would never understand as I was not one of them (we all have our own definition of good-looking and somehow I fit into hers).
She is an intelligent lady and I have always admired her. Honestly. I had never thought about her looks till the time she talked of being hampered by them. And even then I thought, “how could someone so intelligent and well-traveled have a low opinion of herself?”
Over the weekend, I met an acquaintance for lunch. As soon as he arrived, he started cribbing about the ugly Air India air hostesses and how Emirates is better than Etihaad as their air-hostesses are prettier. On and on he went. Then he began talking about his colleagues. How are your colleagues, I asked. Oh most of them are pretty ugly, he said.
I had never know that colleagues were supposed to fit into two categories. Ugly and beautiful. This was an IBM engineer I was talking to. Jet-setter, early 30s, army officer’s kid. As for me, I lost my appetite then and there.
It was really true then, what my friend had said. World is easier for people who are not below average. And who decides ‘average’? So this implies that you have to work double to prove your efficiency. A pretty air hostess can spill coffee all over you and get away with it while the ‘ugly’ one never even gets a smile. Unless of course you are some sort of genius. In the average world, being average won’t take you places.
Most of us love talking about not being judgmental and not caring about the looks or the colour, since it is politically incorrect to say otherwise. That is not the truth. Do we ever stop and ask ourselves if we give a wee bit advantage to someone based on the looks or not?
I do not know if my friends are ugly or beautiful. I never have actually thought about it, or even noticed. ‘Ugly’ word in itself is ugly, when used for judging appearances. Now their characters merge with their appearance. I know which one has a passion for reading and who works in the old age home over the weekend. But that is pretty much it.
And thank God, I never did judge them based on how they looked… who knows how many wonderful people I would have not had the chance to know!
For me, it always was ‘You Are Beautiful’ cos I could see within. James Blunt knew what people needed to hear!
Image source: pxhere
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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