Indian Concepts Of Beauty
I was visiting cities of New York and
Washington D.C. to see the museums during spring break and it was a colleague
who remarked about the difference of our way of looking - I was looking at
shapes and lines of contour while she was looking at colours. Since we were
looking at vases it naturally seemed to me that contours were the first and
foremost measure of beauty. She ignored them completely.
We - the international bunch of colleagues
from the department, and my roommate who was in music - often discussed these,
the concepts of beauty. The only things I could tell them truthfully, too, is
that first of all, we often have families with all possible colour variety of
skin colour, from very dark to very light; second, we have criteria of beauty
that have more to do with shapes and placements of facial features and of
course long thick dark hair (for women), than a pale face without any of other
requirements satisfied; and third, the only Indian woman famed for her beauty,
legendary, a central figure in Mahaabhaarata, was dark. Of course so was Ram,
and he too is renowned, much sung about, for his beauty as well as other
qualities. But then dark men have been seen as attractive in other cultures
too.
Recently again the topic came up when Bob and
his neighbour invited us - her invitation - to a Chinese restaurant. It has
always amused me that western culture is in total awe of of Chinese, while
Chinese look upon them with disdain at best and contempt in general. Chinese
name - the very word - for foreigners is either "foreign devil" or
"barbarian"; and the more friendly India gets treated with
discrimination by those same people who kowtow to Chinese.
At that a usual misconception came up again -
Bob asked if we did not have an abusive word, gora, for foreigners. And he was
learning Hindi! No wonder he was frustrated with me - I did not praise him for
merely attempting or pretending or whatever token gesture, and he was upset I
corrected his mistakes which were half a dozen per minute or per sentence. Anyone
having learned any Indian language, especially Hindi, must know that gora is
not the same as foreigner.
I explained again - Gaur is light-colour, and
that would be colour of light; and the words gora (male, singular)
gorie(female, singular) and gorae (plural, general) are comparative words, not
absolute. Some people are lighter than others and they have again people
lighter then them. But that is descriptive of comparative shade, and has no
other value inherent in the word. In fact associations of beauty and romance
are not always with light colour in India, and nor are they against light
colour. Which brought us to Ram being dark and the fair Seeta falling in love,
Draupadie being dark and a huge battle being fought over her honour by her
defenders against those who attempted to own her and humiliate her. In fact
romantic words for beautiful and lover are gorie and saanwaraa, light coloured
maid and dark man.
This made me think about those most common
romantic words - we use the words but the concepts are universal. Think of
"tall, dark and handsome", "fair maid", and so forth. Why?
Why the dark man and the light woman?
But the answer is obvious. And it has nothing
whatsoever to do with race.
All through history and prehistory and
primitive ages, women were bound to child bearing and rearing, and hence a man
who was busy helping with gathering food, making shelter and defending against
any and every threat was the most useful. Such a man would get dark by being
out in sun and wind. But the woman needed to retain calm and softness so stress
of motherhood would not bring her to screaming frenzy, and so she needed to
avoid any and every stress of being in the violent world out there and shield
her progeny by being with them as the last shield. So her life would naturally
retain her level of light colour and vice-versa, a woman with rough skin and
dark colour was likely to be one that toiled outside and would be not quite so
gentle with children. Again, all this is about comparative values of colour - a
naturally dark colour would look very different from a rough sun-and-wind-burn,
which is not the same as a normal healthy tan of a normal healthy life.
Recently some channel showed the once very
famous and much loved song "o sajanaa" - and that was the very
picture of idea of Indian beauty in every way possible. The rain, the young
woman touched by the breeze and the raindrops and singing in gentle happiness,
her gently curling long hair down on her back billowing a little in privacy of
her own veranda in the small thatched-roof home, her saree simple and
inexpensive and simply draped, and her being totally unaware, unselfconscious
through the whole scene.
Perhaps you have to be Indian to appreciate
it.
Then
again, perhaps not.
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