It’s very easy to criticize someone’s appearance, to ridicule and taunt them on their lacking of being “successful,’’ but no one never really bothers on contemplating upon the impact it has on a person’s life. It is dismaying how the concept of beauty has distorted over time. Our standards of beauty are defined and molded by media, which portrays a complexion less than fair as ugly, being fat and short height as shameful and disgraceful.
It is appalling to see the people with the courage to stand up being shunned and scorned by both, society and the media. In the world of materialism and insecurities, the people of insight are able to look through deception. They are the ones who raise the question; why is media the way it is? The answer is simple. By distorting the notion of beauty, by portraying black as ugly and fat as an abnormality, they manipulate the minds of millions of people and get them to spend hundreds on beauty products and slimming belts, and we all seem to fall for it every single time. We dishonour people, ridicule & humiliate them and kill their self-esteem slowly and brutally.
It is distressing seeing our local demanding aunties asking for nothing but just a “gori, lambi, doctor bahu” who can also make the perfect gol rotis, for their “shahzada’’ son who doesn’t even know how to respect a woman and lack basic mannerism. Why is gori, lambi and patli the criteria for selecting a spouse or a bahu? Why do we assume that a gori-lambi larki would be a better bahu than a moti-sanwli one? This philosophy has ruined lives, and not just one but many and that also in the most critical ways. It is disturbing to see men posting, “Fat is beautiful, Dark is beautiful. Be beautiful on the inside’’ on their Facebook walls while writing, “Slim, Fair, Beautiful Bride Required,’’ on their matrimonial profiles.
We live in a society where chubby people get rejected at a job interview because of their physical appearance as if it has anything to do with their work performance. Girls get rejected for marriage for their skin colour and weight, whereas boys get rejected for their height and/or monthly income. Meanwhile, people who are blessed with both, intelligence and physical beauty are too egocentric and self-obsessed for their liking. People won’t let you live anyway, so why not live a life you want and let the haters hate?
Plump people are often bullied by their families, friends and everybody around. The combination of Patriarchy and Beauty Dysmorphia, that our society tends to continuously feed us is lethal and hurt both men and women alike. It kills self-esteems, destroys families, lives, and relationships. We spend our entire lives running after beauty only to later realize that it was nothing but an illusion, a malady that turned us into a cold-hearted monster. No one is born a bully, it is the society that is to be held accountable. We kill, we hate, we bully, we ridicule, we enjoy the process but we forget that what goes around comes around.
Bullying someone is easy but being bullied is not fun at all. People have “fun’’ when they bully people and disgust it when the same happens to them. Then why the hypocrisy? Why the double standards? These times of intolerance and hatred call for empathizers, listeners, and HUMANS who are courageous enough to abide by their principles and values of life. Times like these require us to stand together, overlook our differences and respect humanity as a whole. We need people who feel confident in their skin and break the stereotypes.
We need more people who teach and be the living examples of humanity, honesty, tolerance, and peace. It doesn’t matter if you are fat, dark, short height, pimpled or wrinkled, this is what you need to know: you matter and the world need you, do not let the world tell you otherwise.
