The Beauty Quandary’s

 It’s been a year of finding my inner strengths and I am not talking about Pilates . My core strength comes from picking up my grand babies! I think we all under estimate ourselves and this age of social media  invasion has me reeling with so many suggestions to improve myself and my core and the muscles that I needed to develop to save myself ! It wasn’t just only this, I needed to save my skin , my brain from rotting , and every part that needed to be rescued from ruin by popping in all these powders and seeds and I needed to engage my inner self ! March is upon me and with everything happening at the same time from Holi , to Ramzan’s and the biggest of them all war and the crazy LPG crisis to induction cookers being sold out ; we had the busiest wedding season .

So, obviously oblivious of all that as happening around me and the war and the energy crisis and the impending fertilizer crisis I decided to get a cleanse of my face so that i could look passably good . The salon women tried to tempt me with a Korean glass skin face makeover and how I would have cheekbones so sharp and clean that they would cut the air I walked through .

The pump that they give you ,, you suddenly start feeling you"re Chefs kiss ! I was still skeptical with all the whitening treatments they told me about  , that I asked for more options . She didn’t like where this was going so she started talking about my age , and all my age spots ( well what do you expect ?) and how I need regular treatments! Then she tried to tell me about laser and how a little bit of Botox and some fillers for my lips would enhance my beauty . There is also this threading not to be confused with actual threading where they would weave an invisible thread under my eye brows to uplift them ! 

Imagine me as a scarecrow with permanently uplifted eye brows questioning everything and everyone like Umberidge ..  You know when you enter a beauty salon they make you feel so inferior and make you doubt yourself that you start getting lured into all the treatments . It’s like the sirens call and the seduction is a new shiny face . The world has become so shallow that the pressure is to be the best socially , virtually and to have the perfect skin and the looks to dazzle . We are a society that has started valuing looks and superficial appearance and ChatGPT brains and getting al our answers there that we have forgotten what original thought and beauty looks like . 

Increasingly I see and meet people who are clueless what is happening and where we are headed  to in terms of geopolitics and the stresses of climate change on us . In the meantime , what is more important is to download an app that would make the face contour according to what is the it look these days! Sadly , beauty meant what one had and to enhance that naturally . Imagine Korean looks on a true blue Punjabi !! I wouldn’t fit in anywhere . Beauty means to be seen and appreciated as it is and not to conform to the unrealistic expectations set by someone who is so far emoted from reality . These standards and bars set up lead to increased consumerism , unrealistic expectations and the hype of having white skin with voluptuous lips . Do men really even notice? I finally walked out with my wallet a tad bit lighter with skin that was cleaner but just the same features intact because all I wanted was my punjabi face !! Ladies , on women’s day , Mother’s Day and every other day just embrace your beauty as it is and remember you might live anywhere but you can’t take the Indian out of you !! The best part is that besan is the still the secret ingredient that is waiting to be discovered and made into the next big thing .