
Am I Beautiful?
During my morning shower today, I shaved.
I shaved my arms, my legs, my stomach, my breasts; every inch of me that I could possibly reach. I impatiently clucked at the dark patch blooming under my arms; the result of constant shaving.
I fretted over the unsightly mole on my breast; worried that it would make my body look less; that it would contribute to me not looking beautiful, as a woman must be.
I shaved the hair from my vagina, wondering why I had to try so hard — as I simultaneously told myself this is what a woman should do; so she can be declared beautiful.
I wanted to be declared beautiful.

Can you hear the disgust behind the clacking of the keys as I typed that previous sentence?
Can you sense the resounding war as another side rages ferociously at my mind’s need to question normalcy?
The feminist in me rears her head and I love her — but she is a jilted lover, taken for granted and misunderstood, under a mask of cowardice, fear and wanting to be accepted.
How dare I question something that is the natural order?
How dare I question values of beauty that my mother assures me are centuries old?
Traditions have to be followed, don’t they? That’s what causes a balance in the world — you know this, baby.
Then why are you trying to go against it?
Succumb.
Just succumb to always, always putting yourself behind expectations. Scramble to live up to those expectations because darling, you will be judged by it; and you want to be a good girl, don’t you?
The next second I’m sitting under the shower; inconsolable sobs racking my body as I continued to shave my legs, watching the tiny stubble of hair disappear and finding no consolation in the smoothness of the skin beneath my touch; yet seeing ‘beauty’ in it.
I am weak. This, I know for a fact. I aspire to be so much stronger — a fighter — a person who questions everything that is wrong with this world, with people’s perceptions of gender roles.
But I fall pathetically short when my mind reminds me that I have been trained to care about what people think. It painfully reminds me that I subconsciously confer to these roles, as much as I claim and pretend otherwise.
Amma looked at me smiling today — Her gaze tinged with a sadness that I could not name.
She returned the smile — but with an unformed quiver.
A shadow.
Amma looked at my full, open smile and said
“I wish you weren’t so beautiful.”
When I smile, I hope to catch the dripping sunlight in the corner of my mouth.
To place my heart in the crescent of my lips.
‘Beauty’ was an undefined world — not crossing my mind. Not crossing my smile.
I could not fathom what amma meant — but the smile melted from my lips.
Clouds, gloomy and overcast, eclipsing the light that liked to dance in my eyes.
Ma — when I was a baby, you put my smile on a pedestal.
You gave me a crown and a magic wand — you centred me.
You centred ‘beauty’ in my brain.
You coaxed me to smile, gurgle, laugh —
As the audience swelled with sighs, gasps and excitable applause.
And declared me ‘beautiful’.
You glowed when you heard that declaration.
When I was 14, your sharp eyes detected a change in my smile.
I did not know what that meant, ma — and perhaps I still don’t.
I watched the first furrow appear on your smooth forehead –
Crow’s feet adorning your eyes.
You made me wear track pants instead of shorts and skirts.
My sleeveless frocks were donated.
You gently shushed my questions with sharp glances and words like ‘ladylike’ and ‘good behaviour’
You pulled me away from hugging my cousin brother.
A sting as sharp as a slap — you told me to stop showing off;
When all I had done was run towards the rain with glee — arms extended in the thrill of embracing the falling droplets.
When I was 18, we fought almost every day.
Why did I want lacy bra’s?
Why did I need lipstick?
Why did I want to shape my eyebrows?
I could have understood, ma.
Perhaps I could have come to terms with a different kind of ‘beauty’ — if you had tried to explain.
I see now — how my requests for reasons turned into hurled words, venomous with anguish.
As you remained stubborn in your dissent.
I did not know how to ask you why and you did not know how to tell me.
There — my perception of beauty had no identity.
There — my own mother and I forgot how to read hearts.
There — we forgot to recognize pain.
There — we dismissed confusion as ‘silly’.
There — I mistook your fear for illiteracy.
There — You made no attempt to converse; perhaps in a language that needed no words.
There — I felt your disapproval burn my skin.
There — we parted ways.
I, in my belief that I knew better- when in reality, I had no identity and nourished a fear of beauty.
You, with pain in your eyes and an inability to express.
Ma — I don’t think you knew or know — Why you did not want me to be — what, exactly?
Caught and torn I stand — between rebellious righteousness and love for you, amma.
I hate my body with a vengeance — the source of which I cannot identify.
I scramble to be called beautiful and immediately loathe myself for it.
And when I smile — I feel the sun thudding behind my ribs — A caged song bird.
Desperate for identity. Desperate for melody.
Desperate to laugh with you, amma — Unabashed and free.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
(This piece was performed as a ten minute theatre production at Kavi Puvi Viamedia’s CODA — August Rush show.)
Writer: Vinithra Madhavan Menon
Venue: Rani Seethai Hall.
City: Chennai
Date: August 8th 2017
Image: Courtesy: https://bit.ly/2LEW3g3
