Hello, Beautiful

I had completed the earlier moot-post and wouldn’t have written another one. Then I started reading my posts one by one. Got stuck on I am not ugly anymore. In fact on Amit’s comment. He quoted a line.

“I woke up one morning and wished I were so beautiful, I’d blind you.”
The one word stuck out sorely. Beautiful. It’s my bane you see. Beautiful.

This is the moment of truth. I have to stop doing it to myself. Trying to compete, who am I fooling? And I have to accept it publicly. The humiliation has to be public. I often write about how I cannot trust people. And how people have given me good reason to not trust them and thereby strengthened my anti-trust theories. And here, ‘people’ means men. It’s all in the word beautiful.

It’s my bane you see. Beautiful has always undone every, single relationship of mine. Because I have always believed that my man will find another beautiful. It has been so too. But at the BASE of it is the fact that I can NEVER believe if my man were to say he finds me beautiful because… well, I don’t consider myself beautiful. Striking perhaps in some ways… it’s more the package. The sass, attitude, smart mouth, cheeky comebacks, devil-may-care shit, whatever jazz you want to call it. Ha ha. But it’s not beautiful.

Night after night I have seen my then-supposed man (and please, those who know me, don’t be presumptuous to think which man I am talking about, I have dated a whole bunch of them for gawd’s sake) looking at a beautiful face or a hot body. And it killed me, the way he would check out women. Cleavage? But baby I have! Eyes? Baby she’s wearing contacts! Hair? Hands? Legs? Arms? Butt? WHAT?

Those days I did not have the body. Snort. At my weightiest, the waist was 29 inches, 37 hips. At five feet, all that gets a rather round shape. There is no concept of low-waist jeans. There is no waist, it’s a waiting room. With handles to hold on to. So that was my body. Pleasantly plump some called it.

Therefore I used to try and be better at everything else. Multitalented they call it. No, I did not consciously lose weight. It’s hyperthyroidism – my metabolism has gone bonkers and then some – plus the other shit that happened. I have not lost weight healthily: So all those women envying the fucking 22-inch waist, get REAL. Sure you will lose the weight, you will also lose the elasticity of your flesh, the radiance of a healthy face, the sheen on your hair and the softness of your skin. I have had to fight it out with exercise and dance to KEEP all that. And to keep my booblets. I think I should now call them Fibroid 1 and Fibroid 2 since the Doctor has declared there is no adipose in them to be technically called boobs. Anyway.

So now I have the body. But what do I do with the face?

Ages ago when Reader’s Digest, in India, had not been India Today-ised and had readable stories – also dad subscribed to that, you read pre-approved stuff those days – I had read a story on the most beautiful faces and what made a face beautiful. The article said the infants were the best judges of beauty. They respond to the symmetry of a face, dividing into a half. Infants, apparently respond more favourably to faces that are more symmetrical. It quoted Daniel Washington with a very symmetrical face. Now my face.

I was doing an article on cosmetic surgery for the rag I worked for. It was on how people are getting stuff done to look good. Speaking to one of the doctors, a Dr N Taneja, I asked him if there was anything he would fix in my face. He smiled, a lop-sided smirk it was and he was twiddling his pen in his fingers, he was wearing a check shirt, his stethoscope was idling around his neck, and said, “Your face has too many angles. The way your chin is, it’s too pointed. I would give some collagen shots to your jaw to make it softer, more feminine.”

More feminine. Oh, he underestimated. I might not have a feminine face according to him but I sure have a woman’s vanity. Those words I won’t forget. And he wont ever feature anywhere in what I do. Hasn’t since. Vindictive? Nope. A doctor who is insensitive… I can see Robin Cook’s fascination with the madness of medical science. Interesting topic that… though not going to veer right now!

But you do know the REAL reason I am REALLY angry with Dr Taneja, don’t you? It’s because he is right. Those who’ve seen my pictures, see them again. There isn’t a single straight shot. My face is not proportionate you see. And I don’t laugh in my pictures because I have an “ugly pirate laugh”. The camera catches it. All pictures are at angles. I shoot photographs, I think I know the angles of my face at least. It’s funny, the people I wanted to be really beautiful for were the ones who ‘saw through’ my angled-pictures. No, no, they didn't buy the fact that I could be beautiful even for a minute. Ha, ha. So when people compliment on a ‘beautiful’ picture, I laugh. There is no escaping the fact that I am not beautiful and there is no escaping the fact that Beauty undoes a man. No one questions Michael Corleone’s sudden love for Appollonia. There’s Kay waiting. But Kay is plain you see. And Appollonia… she is Thunderbolt. And you know what? Right now, in my life… I think there is an Appollonia, has always been.

I can never trust my man because he is a man and there are always beautiful women around. And it has nothing to do with the man. I know I am not beautiful and there’s nothing to be done about it; so I shall always be insecure about my man. He will cheat. I CANNOT take it.

PS: So this is it. Me. There’s a party Saturday night at home. Hmm. Hope people come and hope they enjoy. One never knows.
And you see, I have to be loved for this. Face and all. I will never get it fixed. Never. I would rather die alone.

PS1: had written this Friday night but did not post it. Posting it now. The party's done. Everyone's gone back home. I dont know what the reaxct