"Cinderella wanted....anybody fit the bill???"

I frankly didn’t know what I felt – bugged or weary…It was one of many times that I had heard that…I thought it wouldn’t affect me but it did…We had gone to a little village called Chinnapaalam in Rameshwaram during our deprivation trip. We took quite sometime there; exploring and enquiring about the residents’ problems…It was a small village where the primary occupation was sea weed collection; the women collected weed while the men went fishing. Me and my friend waited, with the children, for the women to come back from their watery jobs. Since the others in our van had to proceed to other places for their stories, we decided to stay back. The van would come back for us once the others were dropped. As time ticked by, we decided to look around the village and take pictures. Two of the little girls came with us and showed us around. We got to see a very different side of life there. There were no bathrooms, not enough water, thatched houses and dependency on a very uncertain profession. Despite that they were happy…perhaps because they had and would probably never know what it is to live well.

That’s when it started…one of the little girls became really attached to my friend and even stood next to her in all the pictures that we took. It didn’t strike me as odd….in fact it was very touching that they became so friendly with us so soon. But then she said something, to my friend, that made my ears prickle and my heart burn. I never thought that even in such a remote corner of the world where I hoped to alleviate others’ troubles, I would meet my own demons. Her words-“Akka, you are so pretty.” My friend just ruffled her hair and we forgot about it. Then we went towards the shore where the ladies would arrive soon. There were many boats and we thought it would be fun to take some pictures. My friend wanted one first so I got the turn to capture the moment. All the little girls and boys crowded around her as they wanted to go back with us on our little chip. This little girl pushed everyone, went and sat right beside my friend and asked her to put an arm around her; “friend friend like” she said. The adoration in her eyes was so evident that if she could, she wouldn’t have let my friend go. It was sweet. But every time she could, she kept telling my friend that she was very pretty. My friend then asked her “How is she??” pointing to me…I just waved her away and laughed…the little girl promptly said “She is very nice but I like you; you are very pretty.”

I felt exhausted because I suddenly realized that wherever I went, that’s the only thing that would matter in the end. Not how good I was at my work or as a person, I was just not pretty. I remember telling my mother that it never mattered to me if I wasn’t pretty as there were many more aspects to my character that people would see and appreciate. I guess I couldn’t have been more off the mark. Even in such a tiny village where I would probably never step foot again in my life, I was reminded of that stark reality. It was not the little girl’s fault…she had probably heard that all her life too that being pretty is all that matters…she was just a zaria, as they say, for me to remember that…

It strikes me as odd because then I was reminded of what my till-then-I-thought-best-friend told me the day we left college finally “you should grow your hair, dress more like a girl and look pretty…then you won’t have any difficulty in finding a boyfriend.” It was unwanted advice but it just drove the nail in deeper.

It’s always not “enough” to be just how you are…when you are an infant, you are not “cute enough”…when you grow up a little, you are not “happy/witty enough”…when you grow into adolescence, you are not “thin enough”….when you grow into middle age, you are not “beautiful enough”…when you are almost into old age, you are not “interesting enough”….when you are finally old and think that it’ll finally end you find that you are not “fit enough”….underlying all this, is the constant “you are not fair enough” speech…

Now that I know how the human mind works, I try to ignore it. I know that I matter most to myself and how I perceive myself. Others and their opinions don’t decide who I am. But I think of countless girls who fall into this trap and are not able to convince themselves that they matter and not their faces. They go into depression, mostly ending their lives. In my mind, I know it doesn’t matter and I wish I could tell them but I know why they do it – the inability to withstand the humiliation of not being born beautiful is indeed a great burden…created by others nevertheless one which you have to carry your entire life unless you choose to unburden yourself…and look deeper to find what really matters….

But somewhere, sometimes I too succumb to my humanness….