Can you afford to be beautiful?

Can you afford to be beautiful? Probably not anymore!

Being beautiful costs and costs dearly! And it isn’t going to be any cheap being so beautiful now.

This is not some sort of a cynical pessimism but what make me come up with such an absurd assertion are the recently presented suggestions and the discussion that followed on the floor of the provincial assembly. A respectable member of the august house has proposed imposition of a 100% tax on all the earnings being generated by the beauty parlours and saloons. The honourable member claimed that during the peak wedding season, beauty parlours in posh areas had more than hundred brides’ made up every day. Now that statement holds water. Doesn’t it? With that immense service being done to the society and mankind, how could these businesses possibly escape with their lucrative returns without contributing anything to the exchequer?

While they couldn’t do much about the overzealous brides who were obsessed and fixated by the prospect of seizing control of an innocent human life, what they could possibly think of was to make the parlours pay for being an indirect party and support to the criminal intent. Much to the surprise, even the women parliamentarians supported their male counterparts during the motion, even those, as pointed out by none other than the worthy deputy speaker (who happened to be on chair) himself, who made it a point to always make their appearance in the house with their true faces and features buried conveniently beneath a secure synthetic film of a make up.

Setting aside the philosophical discussions and our concepts and understanding of the beauty, as the beauty atleast to me, remains an intangible asset; A physical depiction or manifestation of something rooted within; A sensation and a reflection of the divine attribute that characterizes a living being. Whether “skin deep” or otherwise, does that all boil down to making another bid to commoditize that intangible treasure of the nature? Are we going to tag another price on being beautiful? Can beauty be created, sold or traded and even taxed? …..There are certain other aspects associated with the entire deal.

Considering the proposal is finalized and approved the way it is, the knee jerk reaction of the effected business sector would be to pass on the entire burden upon the consumers without (or just marginally) contributing anything out of their own pockets. Taking into account the demographics of the effected segment; Guess who is going to lose out of the whole deal? By the way I see far less boys going to the beauty parlours today and making any significant contribution to their revenues.

So the ladies are you all geared up to contribute magnanimously towards a national cause just like those honourable women representatives that we touched upon earlier?

As they say, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. A logical next step could be to charge and tax those sensitive eyes and minds that can guage, measure and see through the beauty of an existence….and then……what follows next?