Beauty-P or Bea-UTP :P

Creative with the title right? Hehe...I know its lame. But that's what today's post is about. Beauty as UTP sees it. I used the same content for a Toastmaster's speech this last Tuesday so thought I might as well make use of the effort and make a blog post out of it.

There is a famous folk story about Laila Majnoo. I am sure many people have heard of it. It goes that Laila was very dark in complexion and yet Majnoo was crazy about her. Let me narrate a beautiful verse...

Loagan aakhiya Majnay toon, oh tedi Laila rang dee kaali...
Majnoo aay jawab ditta, tu sakoon akh nahi dekharn wali...

Which roughly translates, people asked Majnoo, that your Laila is dark in complexion and Majnoo replied you don't have the eyes that see her beauty.

Its a point to quote the stereotype, "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder." That's exactly what I believe in as well.

The glossy magazine & advertisements showing zero-figure appearances of super-models females or otherwise have just distorted the image of beauty that we originally had. The true sense of beauty has got lost somewhere.

Ask the mother. Is your child beautiful? What a ridiculous question right?

Let me ask you. Is your mother beautiful? Are her wrinkly hands beautiful to you? I would probably get beat up if I ask that in public.

I can  tell you from personal experience that a new born baby in the hands of the father is the most beautiful and purest sight existent today. Unfortunately, the baby soon grows up and gets introduced to the pre-conceived notion of beauty as we have accepted as a given now. Soon she will realize that its a completely different version that is assumed by everyone so it must be true.

I fear a day when my daughter comes up to me and asks me, "Baby, am I ugly?" Now, what do I reply to that? Just because somebody called her ugly, she would come up and ask me that right?

I think the word ugly was just invented for the sake of it. They would have had the word beautiful since God made everybody beautiful. Then the devil's advocate came in and asked, "Who do we call somebody who is not beautiful?" And the so-called smart man who had been given intellect came up with the Smart Alec reply..."I know, I know...lets call it ugly..."

Ugly in itself has no stance whatsoever.

My question is, who are we to define the element of beauty? How did we assume that we have the right to call anybody ugly? Its just so unfair and displays extreme arrogance.

Is it looks? Most people believe so. Whether we accept or not, we do get attracted to beautiful and handsome, don't we? Well OK so God made them good-looking, beautiful-looking but that doesn't exactly mean that they are beautiful right. In the truest sense, beauty is something much more deeper.

It is something beyond the obvious. Its like you see a really juicy red apple and when you take a bite, it could be rotten inside. Its much much more deeper. Its not about the skin and more about the heart and soul. Its about the good deeds. Its about the behavior and nature.

When we judge beauty with our eyes, we can only see what is visible which is the skin, the appearance. I think in order to be able to see real beauty we need to open the eye of the soul so that we are able to see the other souls around as well.

Beauty can be different for different people. But the roots are very close.

In continuation from the verse above, let me take the next verse...

Chittay warq quran day, oh jehn kay siyahi rang dee kaali...

oh jehn naal dil arh paway, oh gori huay ya kaali...

Roughly translated as,

The paper of The Holy Quran is white as well. It only starts making sense when the Black ink falls on it. Majnoo trys to explain in a form of philosophy. When the heart likes somebody then it doesn't matter whether that person is white or black. WAH!!!

Beauty is what your eyes see. The purity of your heart will be able to see the beauty everywhere just like God created it. Just like He wanted you to see it. Take the material curtains off your eyes and open the eye of your heart.

There is nothing artificial about it. Look around you. Look at your home, your work, your school. Look at how beautiful God made this world. Go out and look at this world in a different way. See how the world looks back at you in a different way. Lets get back to the basics. Lets get back to the real beauty that exists even today.

How long will the assumed artificial beauty last anyway? 10 years? 20 years? Life is much longer than that, isnt it?