Miss India, Huma, and my photo

Thanks all...

.. Thank you for sharing with us your hurt - you have made us realise how valuable a human soul is .. the body .. is just a empty shell.....God bless you and Humas` soul ..

my mother told me a long long time ago .. `bachi aghar ghaddi (female donkey) par phool/ghungharoo sanwaaro tho woh bhee boath khubsurath lagnay lagti hey .. khawa insaan tho insaan hey ... apani seerat achi banao .. aur surat khud-ba-khud achi ban jaye ghee`

this was a very refreshing article...I`m sorry about your sister.

this was a reminder to get my priorities straight in life...thanks.

Rehana:

``The point was about more modest clothing, and our traditional wear does engender that modesty, wouldn`t you say?``

No, I wouldn`t, though I`m sure our elders would love us to believe it. Truth is, you can look as vulgar in shalwar kameez, sari, lengha, as you can look modest in jeans and a T-shirt. It`s all in how you present yourself. Skin tight clothes, garish colors, body-baring outfits... as doable in the east as in the west, I think!

Still, I think honestly that you are writing about, and maybe blurring, two different issues - modesty vs. immodesty; superficiality vs. depth. Or do you feel they are interlinked? Surely we both know people who dress modestly and yet are the very epitome of superficiality in thought and action, and vice versa. It`s an interesting debate.

And I didn`t say it before, but I am very sorry for your loss. Sisters are precious, I can`t imagine what it felt like to lose yours.

Bina.

Why does everyone here seem to like making other people cry? I am sick of crying.

The best way is eat vegetables and to lower ur calarioes but do not think of deiting.

i don`t know much about u..but all i would say that one who reads ur article the only thing that srucks his /her mind that may think may be u are complexed.

dear ,i beleive no matter this is true that every women on this earth wants to look pretty ,but at times if one is not blessed with looks that person may be blessed with some other thing..that can be ur personality.and u never know that wonderful person may do wonders and if u`ve heard this that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder its true.beauty is not ever lasting it withers as leaves shed from the trees.

beauty can never be the destination of success.

Well Done Rehana... and thanks for sharing your thoughts with us..

a correction Sobia... its 36-24-36... i guess...

Chowkwala..

Adnan.

Very well done, Rehana. And I`m so glad to finally see so many women who don`t consider a 24-36-36 (is that the `perfect` measurement?) figure ideal! I saw a documentary once called Skin Deep made by a group of Indians...it`s really good. It touches upon all the subjects relating to beauty.

Dear Rehana,

First of all I would like to say that you have done it very well.And the second and the last is that please never let this feeling go away.You are a person who had to go through so much that we must learn from it.You paid the price and all we did was to learn from your experience. Thank you so much for sharing with us, it was very kind of you to wake us up from the nightmares which we always thought were the sweet dreams.Hope to see you around with some more material. My deepest condolences to everyone who were related to Huma Ji and all of us who were not but we wish if we were.Very kind of you and keep it up and good luck with everything!

Cheerio bye!

Welcome to CHOWK Rehana,
you have already proved here that there is a
lot more to you then a photograph. Keep the one
that you think represents you the best in the newpaper.
Huma was beautiful because you remembered. The
rest is in the hands and in the realm of god.

Ras

Maya is not just about the transience of the physical, it is also about the illusion of separateness from the divine.

One should not be attached to beauty, nor should one scorn it.

``Wherever you find strength or beauty or spiritual power, you may be sure that these have sprung from a spark of My (Divine) essence``, says Krishna in the Gita.

Your article cut straight to the heart.

Bless you, bless Huma !

-arun gupta

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

Can`t remember who said this, but...

``There are more beautiful pictures of women, than pictures of beautiful women.``

Rehana,

That was a touching piece of work. May Huma`s soul rest in peace.

``To see the degeneration of what was once attractive flesh pushes one to an awareness of the limitations of the physical, of the transience of life. It is a realization that kills vanity, that engenders modesty and humility.``

The change this tragedy brought to your attitude towards physical appearances is very understandable and your point is very valid. Awareness of the transience of life may be stimulated by many other experiences in life as

well and this awareness has the ability to extinguish as well as bring forth many qualities in us. However, should we allow some of our attributes to be quenched so easily? Your article was about physical appearances, so I`ll stick to this topic. Yes, yes, it`s the inner beauty that really matters, and yes, physically we are transient, our body withers away with age but does that mean we shouldn`t try and maintain it? Not try and improve it (not for others, but for yourself)? I feel all forms of beauty in humans - physical, spiritual, inner, etc., all complement each other. Physical beauty is an important part of ourselves which we cannot ignore. Like you yourself implied, it`s not necessarily vanity that makes a person want to look better. And the fact that looks are ephemeral shouldn`t stop us from making the most out of them as long as we feel good about ourselves.

The same goes for most other things in life. Why do we strive to make our lives more comfortable materialistically when we`re not even sure if we`re going to live to see the next day. Our coffee maker, car and bank balance might well outlive us. But we do it anyway. So why not the same for our looks. I`m not saying we should go out of our way to look like what we feel others would find attractive, but we feel comfortable with.

As far as beauty pageants go - who defines beauty at these pageants anyway? I`ve seen women far more beautiful than the Miss Universes and Miss Worlds.

- lk