Beauty is the opposite of Ugly! The question what is beautiful or what is ugly is more of a subjective perception than objective character. In other words, and as Plato said – beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. What might look beautiful to you may not look beautiful to others. Some people might feel Ms. Angelina Jolie, the Hollywood actress, is beautiful. If she is really beautiful, then everybody should have fallen in love with her. The fact is that everybody has not fallen in love with her. Therefore, beauty lies in the eyes of the person seeing.
People say the sunrise is beautiful and the sunset is beautiful. Or as John Milton said, there is a beauty in the sunrise and there is a beauty in the sunset. If this were to be true, then we cannot explain as to why 90% of the Indians use black colour hair-dye? I repeat 90% of the Indian population! They believe black hair looks more beautiful…not the white hair and hence they apply the black colour hair-dye. You can imagine how beautiful they look after the hair-dye is applied! For me they appear to be on borrowed youth! Second hand Jawani! So, is it the case that John Milton was wrong in saying there is a beauty in sunrise and beauty in the sunset? If that is true, the there is beauty in the black hair, beauty in the white hair. It is we who look beauty from a different perspective!
From the Indian perspective – let us consider other things than hair. Majority of the advertisements / commercials of the Indian advertising industry are racist. Fair and Lovely – for example – very proudly says when you use Fair and Lovely you become fair! They have no shame in being a racist! For them dark skin colour is a sin! Thus, there are ‘n’ number of advertisements that glorifies fairness. All advertising models are fair!
Again, we also say black is beautiful. Surprising! If black is, indeed, beautiful then why are we obsessed with fairness and whiteness? When an Indian male gets married, he expects his bride to be fair, white…like a marble stature! The wife expects her husband to be white, fair. Well, leave them aside but yes, black is beautiful. As per the Indian mythology, Lord Krishna, Lord Rama and Lord Balaji – all the gods we worship are dark…black. Yet and very surprisingly all the better half goddesses of these very gods are fair! The child gods of these gods are also fair! Mythology and religion attributed dark complexion to the demons! When we describe beauty we say ‘Her hair is jet black’ or ‘Her eyes are dark and big’. The night sky is black. The woods are dark and deep.
Yet we are scared of Amavasya and the darkness! Thus, beauty is a strange thing…and I sincerely wonder…what is not beautiful in life and in the entire universe??? When we have beautiful first hand life is available, why opt for second hand jawani?
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional.
What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
