Kajal aur Kupsurat

A few days ago, when I posted something, one of my friend asked me,
"anu, why do you always write about the negativity in the world?"

So here we go. I’m writing about the most magnificent, divine, and alluring part of the world, something that can never be robbed from anyone - a woman's beauty.

Before we delve into that, I would like to quote Jo March:

"Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition, and they've got talent, as well as just beauty. I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for."

Growing up, as I developed my consciousness and started understanding the world, I realised that we girls put so much of our energy into worrying about how we look, how we are perceived externally, and how we present ourselves to society.

They say beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, and colours in any form that can be seen .But isn't beauty about how colourful my soul is ?Isn't it about how I treat people with love and empathy? Isn't it about how I treat myself and everyone around me with kindness? Isn't it about how deeply I love and yearn for everything?

People often define or rationalise their love based on their definition of beauty. They will love you only if you're socially accepted as a "pretty" person.
That’s exactly why I’ve always believed that if a blind person could love you, it would be for you  your real beauty  the kind that can be felt. For your scars and stretch marks that could be traced on skin, for your voice and your laugh that could be heard.

Young girls, begin to define their love for themselves based on how they are loved by the outside world.
But girls, isn’t love something you deserve from yourself before you ever depend on someone else to give it to you?

Body image is a concept that may not have been defined historically, but the desire to improve one’s appearance has existed throughout time. This can be seen in how cosmetics have been used for thousands of years across the world.

However, the active preoccupation with flaws in one’s appearance is a more recent phenomenon  and one that can be emotionally, and even physically, damaging.
Women’s self-esteem can be affected by poor body image. They can suffer from health problems caused by eating disorders or the use of dangerous chemicals marketed as beauty fixes.
Certain groups of women, like those who are physically disabled or visibly different from others, may be especially affected. Even women without poor body image can be negatively impacted by society’s judgment of their appearance  from emotionally stressful family pressure to financially stressful reduced job prospects.

Additionally, social media and the market fuel themselves by trying to make you prettier, skinnier, fairer , basically anything other than what you already are.
They feed off your insecurities, which were foundationally curated by society, just to sell you things to make you "prettier".

i kept thinking it was me.
but what if the mirror was lying?

What is actually the problem here?

Commercialization of Beauty.

  

Our economy  survives by selling us shame. It creates the insecurity and then sells you the fix. First your skin is "too dark", so they sell you fairness creams. Then your body is "too big", so they sell you diet pills, detox teas, and filters. The goal was never to help you. It was always to keep you buying.

Our entire lives, women are not supposed to know if we are pretty. We are supposed to wait for someone else to tell us.
We are supposed to wait for validation before we are allowed to feel it ourselves.

But isn’t that foolish?
We are all so beautiful, in our own ways.

The irony is, even though I preach all of this, tomorrow I will probably go back to using kajal just to feel “prettier”.
I will go back to adding things to my cart on Nykaa, maybe because it is so deeply embedded in me  the idea that I have to look good to feel good.  And I exist with the agony of knowing that I cannot completely get rid of this feeling, no matter how much I unlearn.

Reference-

- https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2143&context=isp_collection

- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Okewa-Owoeye/publication/384197497_EFFECTS_OF_MARKETING_COMMUNICATION_ON_NEW_PRODUCTS_COMMERCIALISATION_AMONG_START-UPS_IN_THE_BEAUTYCOSMETICS_INDUSTRY/links/66ee02df6b101f6fa4f88681/EFFECTS-OF-MARKETING-COMMUNICATION-ON-NEW-PRODUCTS-COMMERCIALISATION-AMONG-START-UPS-IN-THE-BEAUTY-COSMETICS-INDUSTRY.pdf

- https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/fea2.12076

touching souls, yet drifting apart

In this era, we're closer than ever via calls, messages, Gmail, Locket app, and so much more. Yet we're all so lonely. We still lack emotional closeness, even with the person we love. We cannot confront people who are there for the betterment of us. Social media was indeed one of the best inventions for us. It helped us grow together as a community, socially. It allowed us to choose our social circles.

But individually, did we ever really change?

That empty void you feel when you see the followers of the person you love.

The mutual similarities between you and them.

When you see people liking things that are so unhinged and retarded.

Disguised Distance and the Lack of Emotional Confrontation:

We text people instead of talking to them.

We just react "liked" to their messages.

We send reels and memes to people and hold on to the superficial, the shallow.

And even when you know it’s shallow, you don’t know how to fix it,

because maybe that’s just how it works now.

Even when someone replies, it can still feel like you're talking to a wall.

Presence is no longer about being present.

It’s about being online, replying fast, and pretending to care through curated responses.

We’ve gotten so good at performing connection that we’ve forgotten how to live it.

Passive updates and shallow checkups have replaced meaningful conversations.

Abbreviations were made just so that texting could be made more "efficient."

We have voice notes, video calls, endless apps.

But somehow, we still don't know how to say “I'm hurting”

without fearing being left on read.

Constant connection has created more agony than comfort.

And even though communication is easier now, some people don't even try.

Technology makes it easier than ever to know if someone is doing bad, yet no one checks in.

Not because they don’t care, but because they suck at emotional confrontation.

It breaks friendships.

It ruins relationships.

It breaks people who love each other.

And sometimes, it’s not just the communication gap.

It’s what it reveals.

That feeling of being the third party , even when you're the one they say they love.

It’s when they say you’re important, but don’t text you.

When they watch your stories, but reply to somebody else's.

When they like pictures of someone you don't associate with,

and you feel sick inside, comparing yourself to someone who shouldn’t even be a part of this.

You know they love you. But maybe not enough.

Not enough to choose you loudly.

Not enough to show up when it’s inconvenient.

Just enough to come back when it’s easy.

And you sit with that.

The agony of knowing you’re loved, but never quite chosen.

Maybe it’s time we try to save what we have.

Maybe we call the people we love.

Maybe we stop assuming.

Maybe we stop waiting for something to break before we speak.

Note from me:

Writing this made me emotional, 

I used AI just to fix grammar and structure, everything else is mine :)

Thanks for reading if you did. <3

has convenience ruined joy?

Whenever my grandfather used to bring up the phrase "back in my days," I used to roll my eyes because I always took pride in existing in the modern era  where you can instantly know and understand anything you can think of and make you understand anything you wish for. We never had a laborious day where we had to earn what we loved or craved the most.

However, I must thank my older generations for enduring so much so that we could have this amount of luxury. We can all agree that this is indeed making us more and more passionless and lazy because we don’t do things just because it’s probably available at our fingertips.

Craving Italian food? You don’t need to travel to a five-star hotel it’ll be at your doorstep in 20 minutes. Want a break from work and a trip to the mall? Why bother? Everything you could want can arrive while you’re lying in bed. Dream of becoming an artist? There are multiple AIs that can generate what you’re imagining  with zero effort.

So what is convenience?

According to the Oxford Dictionary, it’s “the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty.” But as we evolve, we lean towards comfort over compliance. We chase immediate gratification. We don’t want to achieve something or appreciate the sense of accomplishment or the moment of triumph. We skip the struggle, bypass the process, and call it progress. But without the sweat, without the slow burn, can there ever really be a moment of true triumph?

Most days, we go easy on ourselves by working lethargically, half-heartedly, because we’re wired to believe that happiness and success are just a few taps away. I'm not saying life must be hard for it to be fulfilling. But we should learn to pause, to appreciate, to understand the purpose behind what we do whether it's a small task or a big goal.

End of the day , a wise person (me) said "We don't have to stop looking for stars just because we have light bulbs"

if you made it to the end , greetings you're a sigma for reading something boring like this

byebye~