Surekha Sikri And Zohra Sehgal Proved That A Woman’s Beauty Has Nothing To Do With Age

Surekha Sikri is proof that age has nothing to do with beauty, so why are so many people sharing her 'youthful' picture while expressing their grief?

Surekha Sikri is proof that age has nothing to do with beauty, so why are so many people sharing her ‘youthful’ picture while expressing their grief?

I see a lot people expressing grief over the passing of Surekha Sikri using an old photo of hers, when she was a young woman with fiery, kohl-rimmed eyes.

If it was a part of a series of pics commemorating her vast repertoire, a life well-lived, it would be understandable. But to only use the a pic of her as a 20-something-year-old when the woman who died was 76, is ageist and sexist. It is declaring that a 76-year-old woman is not beautiful, and only when you stare into her 20-year-old eyes you’d feel the regret of her passing.

Why are women consider ‘lesser beings’ as we age?

Do we become less vital, less important, less beautiful now once we age? If so, why? A friend asked this question, do we equate beauty with fuckability? And old people, cancel that, old women are not desirable?

Same thing happened when Zohra Sehgal passed, pictures of her as an attractive young woman surfaced, to shock us that the funny old woman used to be young and therefore beautiful, and then of course she stopped being desirable, marketable.

This is of course true only of women, who turn into old hags while men transform into silver foxes!

Let’s watch our tone when we speak of senior women

The actor Ayushmann Khurrana talks about the time when he dropped Surekha Sikri home and she was hoping she’d find more work. The tonality of that was also of senior woman still needing employment.

But this was a woman at the peak of her craft, the fire in her eyes hadn’t faded. I sure she’d have played a lover with just as much abandon as she did her grandmother roles. But nobody would offer them to an old woman, would they.

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About the Author

Hema Gopinathan

Hema Gopinathan left a blight of a corporate career to homeschool her two children. A teacher trained in the Waldorf/ Rudolf Steiner pedagogy, a writer, an artist, a crocheter, Hema spends half her time in read more...

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