I was raised in a culture that normalizes
speaking about someone's size, shape, skin color, height,
and any other physical attribute under the guise of small talk.
During the '90s, millions of young girls
in post-colonial India were fed the idea
that conventional beauty is being dull, fair, and slim.
Multiple calls for arranged marriages
still list the qualities as prerequisites for a bride.
As a darker-skinned, short, plus-sized girl,
these rules apply to me as well.
Multiple industries thrive off of these insecurities,
promising the average Indian girl solutions
by way of looking like a top actress or a model,
starting from beauty parlors, ill-equipped gyms
with underqualified or absent trainers,
uncertified dietitians on the internet.
It seems like everyone is out to make a quick buck off our body
and beauty insecurities.
Aside from the fact that these industries cause grave danger
to the mental and physical well-being of the people
they target, they also make big money.
Neighborhood salons or beauty parlors
sometimes no larger than 500 square feet constitute
a whopping $1.5 billion industry,
offering services like waxing, threading, bleaching--
yep, this still happens--
and a variety of facials that promise to make your skin
tone a shade or two lighter.
The added pressure of looking thinner
has millions of Indians also ditching our Indigenous food
wisdom for a swanky diet in hopes of becoming thinner.
I played right into this narrative from my early teens
until I couldn't take it anymore.
Here are some beauty-related things I gave up in my 20s
which made my life infinitely easier
and my mental health better.
Number 1, maintaining long hair.
Having long hair is considered auspicious and beautiful
in Indian culture.
Having had waist-length hair since I was five,
I know this to be a tedious chore.
Sundays meant surrendering your hair and patience to an elder
female member of the family--
typically, your mom or grandma.
Your hair would then be oiled, washed,
and air-dried under the sun.
Depending on the length of one's hair,
this could easily take a couple of hours
to an entire day, all for the idea of traditional beauty.
I also have an emotional connection
to my hair in the sense that when I have a bad hair day,
I magically have a bad mood.
When the pandemic hit last year, and I had no other way
to deal with the summer heat, I impulsively picked up a trimmer
and razored my hair off.
I still get stares whenever I go out,
but the ease of not having to worry about how my hair looks
multiple times throughout the day pleasantly surprises me.
I wake up, clear out the tangles, and I'm good to go.
Hours of time saved, and I've had zero bad hair days so far.
Win.
Number 2, hair removal treatments.
A beauty parlor visit is a rite of passage
for a young teenage girl in India.
We regularly get our armpits, arms, and legs waxed,
eyebrows and any other facial hair threaded.
We are a naturally hairy folk, but God
forbid someone knows about it.
I have the pain tolerance of a five-year-old
and don't recall a single time I got my eyebrows threaded
without crying.
I decided this had to stop when I got home one day
and looked at my unevenly done brows, all
that pain for nothing.
So I thought, if I'm going to conform to conventional beauty
standards, I'm going to do it painlessly.
I switched to DIY solutions like facial razors and trimmers.
I'm still lax about it since I don't get too conscious
of my body hair.
But when the occasion demands, I know I'm not
crying my way to the salon.
Number 3, facials or brightening treatments.
Skin bleaching or anti-tan treatments
are notoriously common in most parts of the country.
In all fairness-- pun intended-- the bleaching industry is worth
a whopping $8.3 billion US in revenue worldwide.
This was estimated to grow even more if not for the Black Lives
Matter movement and, subsequently,
the backlash that comes with promoting
skin-lightening products.
While I did grow up with the idea of fair equals beautiful,
essential reading and gentle discourse
around the politics of this idea led me to believe otherwise.
These treatments are done using shady products that
can damage your skin's natural barrier
and sometimes contain hazardous chemicals that
could cause skin cancer.
Never mind, I'm keeping my dark and beautiful skin.
Number 4, Spanx or tummy tuckers.
Most girls I know, irrespective of where
they were born or raised, grew up with a sense of insecurity
around their bodies.
For me, it has always been about looking smaller than I was.
The instant solution to this was wearing
shaping undergarments that claim to magically reduce my size.
As a teen, it didn't matter if my stomach was cramping,
my head was splitting, or that I couldn't think coherently
because of the sheer pain these magical garments caused me.
All that mattered was looking thin.
While learning to accept my body has been a long journey,
I vowed to never put it through such pain again.
In exchange, I feel free and truly confident
even at my heaviest.
Number 5, painful bras.
One of those things most of us have happily
bid goodbye to during the pandemic
is bras, especially the cute, lacy, painful, underwired ones
with no particular use aside from making
you feel like you are suffering a cardiac arrest.
I now invest in super comfortable ones.
It's super easy for someone like me to take the plunge
and do whatever it is that makes me look not like me.
This is especially when I've grown up
thinking that I'm not conventionally good looking.
Giving up on these traditional notions of beauty
is also a way for me to resist misogyny
and be my authentic self.