Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Inspiring Beauty

Old aunts kept the definition of beautiful for me - in fact for quite many of us - as 'fair skin' until our own definition was developed. As I grew old I couldn't really accept only 'a fair skin' as beautiful. It became more intricate for me to call somebody beautiful - beauty that was defined by both the soul and the outside appearance.


So today from a piece of conversation on 'beautiful' I ponder to unveil two females that I really call beautiful and who inspire me to work on what defines beauty to me. I haven't let these two women know all this time that how they have inspired me to look beautiful  - one posting her gorgeous pictures on social media and the other during our gossips narrating her daily deeds which anyone of us would believe to be social work.


These inspirations are neither a past Miss Universe nor Mother Teressa. But one tells me that LIFE IS CARING ABOUT ONESELF and the other tells me LIFE IS CARING ABOUT THE WORLD AROUND US. And that sums up life...right - caring about oneself but on no-cost ignoring to care about life around us.

So Neha, my Miss Universe, is a wheatish complexion and who has had real complex about it. But whether in the house or when she steps out, she is one confident beautiful lady who not only men but women would also turn to look at again.
"So what?" - you could say so many women look beautiful. But as I remember her from hostel days she never missed taking care of her skin - be it chilling winter or a gloomy hot day. She could skip a meal but not the face mask to keep her skin glowing. Her apparels were simple but she cared as to what looked good on her and carried those dresses gracefully. Then a time came when after her two kids she was 95 kg. She did not fail to realize it and left no stone unturned to return back to 62 kg. Being highly qualified, she gave up her career for her family. And then when she started working again, she had to start at a very low pay giving her sleepless nights. Yet she never gave up, neither on career nor her beauty. What I really admire is with all the hustle and bustle of life that a lady lives in, Neha did too but never missed to take care of her as well along with the rest. Simultaneously taking care of both she is now at a managerial level and never missing a chance to flaunt her beauty before the camera.



Roopali, for me clone to Mother Teressa, is my elder sister.
One fine day, walking on the street, she finds a wounded puppy lying and she takes it to the veterinary hospital. Late night returning from work, she finds a child trying to board the bus she had just got down from and the driver not allowing the child to board as he was alone. She follows the child as he seemed a young 5-6 year old child and realizes he is lost, looking for his parents. She calls the police takes him to the nearest police station to report and wait there until midnight to ensure that the child is in safe hands. During her initial career days, she was in the Pharma industry. For some work, she went to a hospital one day and found that a man was lying near a hospital in his feces with mites and fleas over his body. Due to the foul smell and risk of spread of the bacteria, the hospital administration wasn't ready to admit him. Roopali took up charge and by all hook and crook got him admitted. She paid him a visit every day until he was well enough to speak and got in touch with his relatives. These are few incidences that made an imprint on my mind. Such small acts of kindness from her could fill page after page more than her age. But that's where her beauty lies - the beauty of the soul about caring. Going out of the way to get things right for the world around her, is her beauty.

Small story cut short, these women have inspired me to look beautiful the way they are. Deeds and caring it is all about and I try to include the two ways in my life to look beautiful. But who inspires you to look beautiful?

Sunday, April 7, 2019

Umbrellas, Jackets and Shorts


A ritual was performed every year around mid-March and then sometime in November. The clothes from the boxes were shuffled with those in closets. It didn’t make sense to Pakhi why would they be moved in boxes at all when they could be worn other times as well. So this time when Ma started the same ritual in November, Pakhi asked her why didn’t they keep all the clothes in the closet; why was this task performed at a specific time of the year.

Ma took a deep breath. It was a long story to narrate to Pakhi. She went into her own times when November bought a new excitement to wear sweaters, Jackets and savor the warmth of blankets and quilts. When bonfire would bring the society people at one place to chat munching a handful of groundnuts. Now how could she unfold this to Pakhi that she and people of her time had enjoyed four kinds of weather in a year? It was nothing like the present times when one day felt like spring, the second like chilling winter, the third like a hot summer day and a few days later a day that felt like an autumn leaf fall. It was difficult to explain to Pakhi that how it all went in their times when granny packed up all winter clothes in boxes after putting them in sunshine for sometime in the month of March and put all the summer clothes in Ma’s and her siblings' closets. How their summers went splashing in the water and enjoying ice creams. Then came June and it would start pouring, sometimes heavily. It was time for umbrellas, raincoats, and swings too. And by September as the rains subsided, it brought autumn shedding away the leaves and reminding them to prepare for winters.

All of it was ‘old-times’ now and Pakhi just saw the ritual happening of shuffling clothes. It remained a practice for Ma. As for Pakhi, her closet did not see one season at a time; but a mix of summer, winter and rain clothes pulling out an outfit depending what the morning brought for her.


Ma never thought half of her past life what scientists and geologists had been warning of as ‘climatic changes’ and 'global warming'. But she felt guilty today as she told Pakhi, how things had changed and how her individual contribution small but meaningful could have not made the weather cycle extinct. AND how this ritual (that Pakhi sees as) would have made sense to her