A thing of beauty...

... is a joy forever.

It's true: I've willed it be wrong and false and foolishly romantic and therefore fated to an early death - but it will not escape me.

I remember reading sometime back this article about a woman whose husband is her better (looking, in this case) half, and all the funny and no-so-funny things about this situation. It was an article I instantly connected to - and I read it with relish, imagining all those mean aunties (most of them on the husband's side I bravely admit, and some silent ones on my side as well) who muttered 'wonder what he sees in her'.

I've come back to this situation often. I did not blossom into the proverbial butterfly, I just became more comfortable with what I looked like. I was a typical geek in school - all gangly limbs, braces and glasses, longer-than-long oiled hair with plaits. And I went to a typically trendy convent high-school. And I was put down directly and indirectly about how I looked. And now when I meet ex-classmates, it's the pretty ones who say - oh, you look nice! - like it's an unexpected shock. I'm dramatically different from before - but it's not the difference so much as the adjective they use.

Although I don't subscribe to the theory that things are easier for pretty looking people, why in some case beautiful women are taken to be dumb and it's pretty frustrating for them - but I do know sometimes it is easier for them. A traffic snarl that can be solved with a smile. A crabby fight that just needs a certain look. This feeling of coming home dead tired and feeling better by just seeing someone's perfection. I also know you get immune to beauty when you live with it for too long - but never really immune. Beauty is the best epitaph.

Why am I here, writing this? I just came across someone from my school who I don't really remember, but who used to play Mary in all our Nativity plays. Because she's got glorious skin and is angelic and cherubic. Every year. Who said Mary was beautiful? The subconscious treatment that equates beauty with being above ordinary starts in school. Why don't they have a random straw poll and pick a Mary in schools? Why not the short one or the dark one or the one with the pug nose? It takes no acting talent: she just needs to sit there and smile, so I don't believe talent had anything to do with it. We've conveniently equated beautiful with the divine. Hence anyone else is lesser, mere mortal. Little girls with pink frilly frocks and cherubic cheeks versus little girls with broken hearts wondering why they can't play princess.

Is this the same thing as picking the best speaker for the debate competition? No. Talent can be nurtured, developed, everyone has a shot at it. Beauty? Why that's the one damn thing that's not really in your hands. You can go as far as well-groomed or well-turned-out or well-dressed, but beautiful? Not even under the scalpel.

When I saw her today - Mary from school - and I looked through her photographs from school and I sat bewitched and saw her beauty - and felt very frumpy myself. And sorta felt cheated. And a little hurt that my 'blossoming' never came. And worried how I'd react if I saw my son being held back from something he wanted to do because of how he'd look. And grateful that perhaps he'll have to put up with it lesser because he's a boy. Maybe. Big maybe there.

Ofcourse I do believe that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. I just wish all the beholders were are short-sighted as Nino's Dad.