The quest for beauty

Did you take a look at yourself in the mirror today? Did you like the look of your nose, your chin, your ears, your eyes, your eyebrows, and for guys your biceps, your abs?  Did you yearn for a Hale Berry look or did you want a body  like Sylvester Stallone?

My point is today, people are so obsessed with looks that they even resort to cosmetic surgery to change the way they look – they do surgery on their nose, chin, eyebrows, ears.. they go for silicone, collagen implants and to look trim they go for liposuction.

Cosmetic  surgeries cause chronic pain, allergy, blindness and even death.  And people are still willing  to take such risks.

A case in point is Michael Jackson.  There is a world of difference in how  he looked like in 1977 and how he looked years later in 2006. Recently, a 22 year girl from Russia  had 100 silicone injections because she wanted the worlds biggest lips in the hope of resembling her favourite heroine Jessica Rabbit. And in Singapore,on Dec 30^th, 2009 Franklin Heng, property management tycoon died due to multiple holes in his intestines and stomach in a liposuction surgery gone wrong .

All of us are born, attain youth, old age and eventually we have to die.  There is no eternal youth whatsoever and ageing is a natural process.  So, why are we trying to create a mask and hide what we truly are?.

We are born with flaws and each of us has our own unique looks, strange mannerisms and behaviours.  That is what makes us stand out from the crowd.  That is the beauty in us.  So, let us celebrate our imperfections.  Let us seek to be imperfectly perfect.

Cosmetic surgery does not make you a different person.  Very often our external appearance is more a reflection of how we feel.  And if you feel great inside you will natural exude a radiant charm.

Cosmetic surgery distorts appearances that we are born with.  It enables us to alter the bodies and come up with something different.

Magazines, music videos and television are also responsible for creating this disgusting obsession with beauty and perfection.  We have slimming advertisements and beauty pageants.  Cosmetically enhanced celebrities are redefining the concepts of beauty and fans are blindly aping them.

Beauty is not skin deep.  I think that putting on those layers of makeup do not make you a beautiful person – although many of you ladies may disagree to that.

After seeing the dangerous results of cosmetic surgery, some Hollywood stars like Kate Winslet and Emma Thomson are now crusading against cosmetic surgery.

Now then what do I consider as true beauty.  It is the beauty in people like Mother Theresa who served selflessly and tirelessly. She was small in stature but rocklike in faith. She started orphanages, schools, hospices and homes.  Her life-long devotion to the care of the poor and destitute in Calcutta won her the Nobel Peace Prize.

Let us find that beauty in the values that we hold, in the work that we do.  The glow in you when you touch someones heart – when you make a change in someones life is true beauty that is everlasing, that is forever.  So, I urge you to find a cause be it only once a month or once in 3 months or atleast once a year  to do something for which you expect nothing in return – not a cent.  Just go and spend some time to plant a community garden, help children at reading, help at an old age home or with the intellectually disabled.  We have to stop always thinkiing from the selfish confines of only our family to include our neighbours, our community and the world at large  We can sow small seeds of change by pitching ourselves for such a higher cause .

Volunteering connects you to others.  It helps you to make new friends and increase your relationship skills.   It can bring fun and fulfilment to your life.  It increases your self-confidence, fights depression and helps you stay physically healthy.

I think the need of the hour is to take a good look within – to do an inner surgery – to find that peace, that happiness, that beauty that we were born with and is always within us. True beauty is that invisible essence that binds all of us in a universal chain of brotherhood.  True beauty is your inner nature and does not require any makeup.

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Abhi na jaon chodkar ke dil abhi bara nahin

 

 

 

Abhi  na jaon chodkar ke dil abhi bara nahin  —    An evergreen, charismatic  actor Dev Anand (26^th Sept 1923 – 3^rd Dec 2011) had an indefatigable spirit and was full of the zest for life. He has left a void in the Hindi film world that cannot be filled.

I remember seeing  Dev Anand movies as a kid.  They were shown in my colony on a make shift screen in the evening using a projector and all of us would sit down in the open and watch these hits like Guide, Hum Dono, Jewel Thief, CID, Johnny Mera Naam, Hare Rama Hare Krishna, Paying Guest, Nao do Gyarah , Kala Paani etc.   Guide became a classic hit and was an adaptation of R K Narayan’s novel in collaboration with Nobel laureate Pearl S Buck.

The songs and music in each of these movies are so memorable that they are so fresh in my memory even today.  Tere mere sapne ab ek rang hain, Hum bekhudi mein tumko pukare, Hum hain rahin pyar ke, Khoya khoya chand, Rimjim ke tarane leke, Gata rahe mera dil, Dil dhal jaye, Aaj phir jeene ki  tamanna hai, Waha kaun hai tera, , Dil pukaare aare aare, Main jindagi ka saath nibhaata chala gaya, Mana janab ne pukara nahin and so on the list goes on.

Dev Anand is often called the Gregory Peck of Bollywood.. because he exuded such a charm on screen and he had a unique drawl, speech and gait which was imitated by many artists.  He was versatile and acted in romantic movies, action, suspense and various genre of films.   He acted opposite heroines like Suraiya, Waheeda Rehman, Saira Banu, Zeenat Aman, Mumtaz, Nutan, Vyajantimala, Meena Kumari, Kalpana Kartik, Hema Malini etc.

His career spanned more than 65 years and Dev Anand acted in 114 Hindi films of which 110 have him play the main lead hero. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan in 2001 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2002 for his contribution to Indian cinema in September 2007, Dev’s own autobiography “Romancing with Life” was released at a birthday party with the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh.

Change

From a seed springs forth a plant
Reaching  out to the sun
Branching out with vigour
Into a full-grown tree

A tender, helpless child
Grows into a teenager
Then matures into an adult
Grows old and dies one day

A tiny caterpillar
Nibbling on green leaves
Slowly transforms into a pupa
Until it breaks free into a butterfly

Seasons change
Plants, animals and humans change
Day changes to night
Change is all around us

Let us remain centred
While riding this wave of change
Soaring high into the sky like the redwood tree
Keeping its roots firm underground

 

© copyright skm, 1st Dec, 2011