Miss India, Huma, and my photo Thanks all...

Miss India, Huma, and my photo Thank you all for your replies. Each one is greatly appreciated. Though it`s late, I`ll do my best to respond...

Firstly to the chowk editors thanks for publishing my piece, albeit without warning. I almost missed it :)

Now to your replies...

Bina

The point I was making had nothing to do with Eastern vs Western clothing, or less or more attractive clothing. Women can and do look stunning in both types of fashions. The point was about more modest clothing, and our traditional wear does engender that modesty, wouldn`t you say?

BTW I do believe we have a mutual Trinidadian aquaintance :)

Zeemax

Trust me, if you saw my photo and saw the `real` me I`m sure you`d join the chorus of my well-intentioned friends who wanted me to do a reshoot. But if you`re really that curious...hmm, maybe I can make some money off of this :)

And thank you for the kind words :)

NasreenK

The obsession with beauty contests (not pageants, let`s see them for what they are) isn`t unique to India. In the Latin American countries the cult of the beauty queen is well established. If memory serves I believe Venezuela has an academy built especially to churn out Miss Worlds and Miss Universes by the bucketload. I`d even venture to say that if there ever was a Miss Pakistan, Pakistan would be just as obsessed. But probably only to the point of beating Miss India :)

Scout

Thank you. I agree with your sentiments, all but the last. Beauty contests (not pageants) probably do more harm than good but it`s a matter of choice, one you can`t legislate against. Besides, they`re a good laugh :)

Brat

Yes, as unfortunate as it may be, physical appearance and self-esteem do often go hand in hand. There`s nothing wrong in trying to look your best, but the cult of standardization and objectification takes the importance of physical appearance way too far. Blame it on the patriarchy :)

Temporal

Thank you so much. I feel you`ve shared more in your reply than I have in my article. All good writing is in some way or another cathartic; nothing wrong in that. As the poet has said, much pleasure from death must flow. I don`t know if I believe in that. (I don`t know that I believe, or have faith as you say, in anything, actually. I have ideas. An outlook, as you say; ideas and outlooks are easy to modify and change, but beliefs are a bit trickier.) But you are right- death, what is there to fear? As the scribe has said, death, where is thy sting? Still, what do we living know? What can we know?

Perhaps more on this later, elsewhere.

Thanks again.

Lubna

As I said above, there`s nothing wrong in trying to look your best. If it makes you feel better about yourself, fine. But wouldn`t it be great if we felt self-assured and confident enough with ourselves in who we were, that we didn`t need to care whether or not we were having a good hair day or if we looked OK without lipstick? Perhaps it takes great strength of character to arrive at such a position (certainly moreso for women than men) but I think it`s something worth striving for. The example I always think of is Mother Theresa. There was a woman who wore nothing else but her white and blue habit, wore no makeup, no jewelry and yet just looking at her gave one an instant sense of her great inner beauty.

Thank you for your sentiments.

And again, thank you all.

Rehana

The Aura and Mystique of the KOH-I-NOOR test