A letter to all the to-be-brides

To all the to-be-brides,

Marriage is considered as one of the biggest milestones in a person's life in our country, especially in the life of a woman. The idea of having a fairy-tale wedding at a dream venue, with the most flattering jewelry and gorgeous finery has been exploited to death by most film and Ad-makers, not to mention the subtle and not-so subtle diet of a beautiful princess marrying the handsome prince most of us are fed upon since childhood.

All this naturally puts in a certain amount of expectation-depending on our personality-we have from our wedding day. We certainly want to look and feel our best and cannot imagine a bad hair day or bad-skin day. That would be nothing less than a catastrophe. I thought so too. But, let me share with you my story.

I had about 6 months of time between my engagement and wedding and, but of course, I started on a disciplined regime of looking after my skin. Well-meaning advice and tips began to pour in and I carefully sifted through it all and followed a routine that seemed right. I never had a great skin so to speak. I had suffered and recovered from acne bouts, pigmentation and skin allergies a couple of years ago and hence was all the more determined to keep all of this at bay. Yet, despite my best intentions, much to my horror, I had the worst kind of acne break-out just a month before my wedding.

I rushed to my dermatologist even as I knew that any kind of medication (internal or external) will take at least 3-6 months to show any visible effect. I was aghast and heart-broken, to the extent that I had an episode of black-out due to sheer exhaustion and stress! I hated to look at myself in the mirror. I'd pour my heart out to my then fiance (we stayed in different cities) and fearfully prepared him for the 'disaster' he was about to meet on our wedding day. He never understood the fuss and kept assuring and re-assuring me that he won't be disappointed or shocked to see me, and how I looked on our wedding day really did not matter to him. Of course, I couldn't be convinced and assumed that he was saying these things only to mollify me.

I prayed for miracles and applied all sorts of application that promised an acne-free skin within a week and such-like. Of course, no miracles happened. The medication I was on worked slowly and it didn't really make much of a difference outwardly. I put up with all the stares and sympathetic questions and advises from people around. But, my family and the one person who was to matter to me the most in my next phase of life, stood rock solid behind me. I'll never forget one thing that my sister told me, "Wedding is just a day's affair. Marriage and it's dynamics begin only after that. Do not stress so much on that one day that you miss the fragrance of the days that are to follow."

I guess the look says it all!

Indeed, I found a great friend in my husband who supported and loved me unconditionally ( and continues to do so) from day one, pimples and all. I learned that it did not matter how you meet your spouse, how you get married, how you looked on your wedding day, how many compliments you got, or how happy the guests were. The real test is how both the spouses handle their share of joys and sorrows, how they approach their differences and how much of inner cleansing they undertake to make their bonding free from ugly marks of distrust and misunderstandings.

So, my dear brides-to-be, take care of your looks but do not become obsessed with polishing the outer self so much that you fail to prepare your mind and soul for an enriching journey.

Take care, because you are worth it!

This post is a part of #GarnierPureActive activity at Indiblogger. 

and because this post also defines a woman for who she is from within and not on the basis of how she looks, I also link it to the #UseYourAnd activity at BlogAdda in association with Gillette Venus.

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Beauty-full of woes

Ma'm you have a lot of scars and pits on your face. Please take blah blah facial. That will also help reduce the dark circles and the tan.

Ma'm you have so many white and black heads!

Ma'm your feet are black. This colour nail polish will not suit you. This *taking out a horrendous pink colour one* will look nice.

No thanks. I have black feet, so please put on the one I have chosen.

No prizes for guessing where this conversation could have taken place. A place where ironically we go to feel and look better. By no standards can the above tete-a-tete lift someone's spirits. Let me add here that I do not particularly look forward going to the parlour even otherwise but, like many of my friends from the same clan may agree, I also cannot avoid it. I don't know if it happens to all but I get the feeling, each time, that I am a perfect candidate for all the beauty products (read improvement solutions) available . Yes, it could be a marketing strategy used on everyone to tap weaker souls who may end up getting all the treatments suggested. This could well be taken as a well-meaning comment. After all they are only helping you get that flawless fair-looking skin. I may be over-reacting by ranting out like this. But in a country so obsessed with fair and flawless beauty, looking good does become a narrower concept and one really cannot blame the lesser mortals if they do end up feeling victimized. So, what is the solution?

Avoid the particular parlour - and go to another where nothing is very different.

Avoid parlours altogether - As I said earlier, that is a necessary evil. I also see it as a much needed break from monotony to pamper myself.

Wallow in self-pity - oh! that I do often and it does not help. There has to be a better one.

Ignore such remarks and/or the attendant - by far the logical solution. But it is easier said than done. You want to burn their tongue with your eyes and maybe spit venom as a fitting reply. But again, it is not worth it. They need to be around to err..serve you. Besides, they may take revenge by threading your brows too thin or cutting your hair too short. You cannot take chances to survive such image-damaging accidents.

As an after thought I feel perhaps it is not the attendant's fault too. The art of sophistication comes in handy when the truth needs to be told. Don't you think when a person signs up for a beauty course, he or she also needs to be given a refresher on soft skills like communication. Most of the attendants are young people who are not by nature vile. They do not mean to be hurtful. They are just ignorant of a more polished diplomatic way of communication. But isn't this of prime importance given that they are dealing on a one-to-one basis with people, most of whom, lets say, have a lot of imperfections vis-a-vis vital body parts? The customers are conscious of it and definitely do not need to hear it explicitly especially at a place where they come probably to face their demons bravely.

Had we had it all perfect, we wouldn't be their customers in the first place, right?

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Are You Fair Enough?

I am talking about skin colour here. If you are even one shade less than a white-washed tone, you better start using the fairness products else god forbid you may lose the job interview, remain a spinster all your life, suffer nasty remarks from the road side pani-puri Walla and such other dreadful consequences.

Seriously, what are the Ad companies thinking when they show ads where a person using a fairness cream has an interview panel groveling before him to accept the job or a lady who is already ready to give the sun tough competition is depressed about her skin not glowing enough? A fair-skin can get you your dream job, win beauty pageants, the man of your dreams, and in short have the heavens and lady luck licking your feet. Never mind education and knowledge. That is for the less fortunate ones. The colour of the skin rather than person’s inherent qualities like confidence, talent or even education determines his or her destiny. I am surprised that no one has thought of suing these in-your-face-liars.

However there is a far more serious issue here. And I am not even talking about the validity of their claims when they insist they a person with a dusky-complexion can become a white-skinned foreigner within a week or even life-time use of their products. The inherent desire of the Indian or Asian skin-coloured that desperately wants to become fairer at whatever cost is the underlying factor that is being exploited to deaths by advertising firms. In the wake of this reality, can we really blame them? Fairness of the skin is associated with beauty, intelligence, competence and all the goodness that heavens have to bestow. We may have made inroads into science and technology, have the best international schools, colleges and B-schools churn out bright alumni year after year, yet we are unable to wipe out this deep-rooted regressive belief and instil pragmatic thinking and self-confidence that is not dependant of racial background.

A dusky girl is considered far more unlucky than her male counterpart for the obvious concern about who will marry this poor dark girl? Although the evolution of metro-sexual male has given rise to fairness cream for men, men by and large get away from being typecast in skin-colour moulds. After men need to be tall, dark and handsome but women need to be tall, fair, slim, beautiful and what-not. Women-centric serials start with the concept of having dusky protagonists defying the trend but a few episodes down the line they strangely turn a few shades fairer. Hot model Bipasha though known as the dusky siren is ironically never portrayed on-screen in her true skin-tone.

While we Asians spend our time trying to lighten our genetics, our western counterparts spend hours in sunlight to get a darker skin tone. Talk about the grass being greener on the other side! Here’s a satirical anecdote I read recently in the magazine section of a leading newspaper. I do not remember the name of the author, unfortunately. An Indian mother prays to God about getting a fair bride for her son. God more than answers her prayer when her son comes home with a foreigner much to her dismay. Maybe she did not want such a “fair” bride after all. About time to start wishing for more meaningful things in life.

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Band Baaja Bride..

..is the name of a show on NDTV Goodtimes. I have been following the programs on this channel since they launched it three years ago. They have some really good shows that cover a variety of topics -- food, travel, beauty, fashion, pets, fitness, technology, spirituality, to name a few.

The program in question conceptualizes the idea of providing the perfect makeover a bride-to-be ever dreams of. The team dons the garb of Santa Claus in transforming a girl-next-door into no less than a Bollywood diva on her D-day. From perfect make-up to designer outfits, the bride gets it all. “If you are getting married and would like to have a dream makeover, do write in to us and we may contact you” goes the ad campaign for this reality show. Of course there is a teeny weenie disclaimer that says, yes you guess it right, *conditions apply*. The episodes I have watched have generally featured brides-to-be from quite affluent families who can anyway afford expert advice. So there may be something to suggest there.

Nevertheless, BBB makes for an entertaining show. It begins with the introduction of the to-be bride and her family along with their expectations from the makeover. The makeover is usually segmented into three parts- first, ironing out the imperfections in the overall physical appearance of the girl, second, her hair and facial-make-up and lastly her outfit for the occasion. Experts- like Shahnaz Hussain, Samantha Kocchar, Neeta lulla and such other eminent names- are consulted for the relevant segment. For instance, in a particular episode, the woman in question had a prominent gummy smile of which she was extremely conscious of and wished it could be corrected. And voila! The team arranged for a dental surgeon who fixed the problem with a minor surgery that lasted about 30 minutes to give the woman the perfect smile. Another girl who had a problem putting on weight and had eating disorders had counseling sessions with a nutritionist who gave her valuable tips to improve her health. A plump bride aspiring to slim down dramatically just days before the D-day was given a designer lehenga with appropriate silhouette to make her broad frame look slimmer. Yet another anxious bride went through pre-marital counselling sessions to help her prepare herself for the next phase in her life.

While this show definitely raises the bar to look better than your best on your wedding day, it also makes the achieving part seem fairly simple and within your reach. I watch this show for fun but generally wonder if such shows put unwanted pressure on the already-pressurized young girls to achieve the perfect 10 in the looks department. It would prudent to remind impressionable minds that while it is great to have a dream wedding, it does not really matter in the long run. For a dream marriage, it takes a lot of hard work; a perfect body, perfect make-up, hair-do and designer outfits really cannot help you there.

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