Beauty Is Not Skin Deep
'Good morning ma'am', she wished me with a sweet, shy smile as her mother handed me her admission documents. I entered her name in the attendance register and extended her a welcome hand. To be honest I was a bit shaken to see her.
Ankita was the newest student in my class and the most special. She was a special child...a physically disabled...na na, a differently abled child!
She had been born to perfectly healthy parents but you can't really explain these strange ways of nature (though medical science has an explanation for these conditions), can you? Gnarled bones, speech disorder and limited learning abilities meant she was different from other students in most spheres. She couldn't write and draw as fast as them, couldn't run and play with them, couldn't understand all the concepts of grammar and Mathematics and Science and mug up the facts in Social Studies. On top of that she had a slur in her otherwise sweet voice.
How would she cope up with the humongous syllabus? Would she even manage to pass in the tests and exams? More importantly, would us teachers pass in our duties and responsibilities? The questions kept on nagging us. We had never had such a student among us. We were not qualified and trained to deal with the difficulties and challenges the differently abled children faced in their day-today routine and studies. It was as much a challenge for us to teach her as it was for her to study and participate in the various co-curricular activities.
But she did everything. Slowly but steadily, resolutely. She hobbled in with a full bag, noted down the classwork and homework, drew and painted. Though she was a little too self-respecting initially to seek help but on being prodded persistently by her teachers and motivated by classmates she started mingling with the others and ask for help which was readily given. She was a sweetheart everybody loved. Her sweet and friendly demeanor endeared her to her classmates in no time and they were more than eager to help her with her work and even carry her bag at the end of the day when she would be too tired to even lift a finger.
But there are all sorts of people in the world and some of them can be quite cruel at times. Not only the students but even some of the teachers would pity Ankita. They would often discuss her physical conditions and remark that she would never be able to walk and talk properly. Some children would even go to the extent of calling her a dark, ugly duckling who wobbled and dribbled. She would often be excluded from group projects and house activities. Nobody would want her as a dance partner. But she remained impervious to these callous and heartless comments. She would go on greeting everyone as if nothing had happened. She couldn't help the fellow students in their studies but she was always there to share her text books with anyone who had forgotten to bring them. She was also generous with not only her pens, pencils, colors but also even the sumptuous tiffin that her mother packed for her. Compassion and empathy was what her face glowed with!
Girls would be animatedly discussing beauty treatments, fashion trends and their latest shopping trips and as soon as Ankita arrived there would be an awkward silence. They were embarrassed and disturbed by her presence. Once I heard a sassy senior girl who was the heartthrob of the school, remark, 'arre ye kya karegi beauty treatments karwa ke, iski shadi to honi nahi hai (Why should she need any beauty treatments, she isn't going to get married) and another one smirked, ' haan iske parents ke to saare paise bach rahe hain (all the money of her parents is being saved). Both of them guffawed heartily, callously. I wanted to chide them but a confrontation wouldn't have served the purpose of sensitizing them. I decided to introduce the topic in their class later but in a subtle manner.
And I got the opportunity when I had to introduce the poem Mirror by Sylvia Plath. For the uninitiated, this poem is about an aging woman whose skin has become freckled and blemished and who comes to check her appearance in her mirror every morning. The mirror describes in its own voice her angst at the loss of her beauty with advancing age. For her, her beauty is her identity and when the mirror disappoints her by reflecting her true image she tries to find other sources like the candles and moon who hide her blemishes and present her with a more flattering image.
''A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.''
While introducing the poem I had told the students a little about the personal life of Sylvia Plath and how she had been depressed over being deserted by her husband-poet Ted Hughes-for some other women and that she considered her falling beauty to be responsible for her husband's apparent loss of interest in her. In a state of severe depression and gloom, she had committed suicide sometime after writing this poem.
I had not anticipated it that many of the students, despite being so young and incapable of understanding adult emotions, would be so affected by the poignance and gloom in the poem. They retorted, even as I was explaining the poem, that she shouldn't have committed suicide for such a frivolous reason. They told me that beauty is not skin deep. Physical beauty is only superficial; what matters in the long run is the inner beauty, the value system, the compassion and love you nurture in your heart. In their view, one should be honest and accept her/himself and everyone else as what they are instead of being swayed by the commonly accepted norms of physical beauty.
That did it! Their faces glowed with the realization of where they had been going wrong. I didn't have to discuss and explain anything more to them.
I breathed a sigh of sheer joy as I remembered the words of famous poet Khalil Gibran, “Beauty is not in the face. Beauty is a light in the heart.”
From that day onwards I never heard any discussion of fair-dusky-black complexion, pimples and acne. If at all acne was mentioned in the class it was in context of healthy food habits and hygiene.
Ankita was the darling for everyone, sans any pity or mercy for her medical conditions. Nobody smirked and jibed behind her back about her lack of 'beauty'. She inspired everyone with her inner beauty-a loving, selfless and compassionate heart.
My students now knew, 'Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder'. And that was the most beautiful day of my teaching career.
I believe every woman has TRUE BEAUTY within her in all the roles she plays. For over 18 years across 650 plus salons across the country, Naturals has been helping the Beautiful Indian Woman get more Beautiful.
Today Naturals Salutes the Beautiful Indian Woman.
Presenting Naturals TRUE BEAUTY… http\://bit.ly/naturalsOF
Author's note: This post has been written as an entry to True Beauty: Blogger Contest organized by Women's Web in association with Naturals Salon.
Ankita was the newest student in my class and the most special. She was a special child...a physically disabled...na na, a differently abled child!
She had been born to perfectly healthy parents but you can't really explain these strange ways of nature (though medical science has an explanation for these conditions), can you? Gnarled bones, speech disorder and limited learning abilities meant she was different from other students in most spheres. She couldn't write and draw as fast as them, couldn't run and play with them, couldn't understand all the concepts of grammar and Mathematics and Science and mug up the facts in Social Studies. On top of that she had a slur in her otherwise sweet voice.
How would she cope up with the humongous syllabus? Would she even manage to pass in the tests and exams? More importantly, would us teachers pass in our duties and responsibilities? The questions kept on nagging us. We had never had such a student among us. We were not qualified and trained to deal with the difficulties and challenges the differently abled children faced in their day-today routine and studies. It was as much a challenge for us to teach her as it was for her to study and participate in the various co-curricular activities.
But she did everything. Slowly but steadily, resolutely. She hobbled in with a full bag, noted down the classwork and homework, drew and painted. Though she was a little too self-respecting initially to seek help but on being prodded persistently by her teachers and motivated by classmates she started mingling with the others and ask for help which was readily given. She was a sweetheart everybody loved. Her sweet and friendly demeanor endeared her to her classmates in no time and they were more than eager to help her with her work and even carry her bag at the end of the day when she would be too tired to even lift a finger.
But there are all sorts of people in the world and some of them can be quite cruel at times. Not only the students but even some of the teachers would pity Ankita. They would often discuss her physical conditions and remark that she would never be able to walk and talk properly. Some children would even go to the extent of calling her a dark, ugly duckling who wobbled and dribbled. She would often be excluded from group projects and house activities. Nobody would want her as a dance partner. But she remained impervious to these callous and heartless comments. She would go on greeting everyone as if nothing had happened. She couldn't help the fellow students in their studies but she was always there to share her text books with anyone who had forgotten to bring them. She was also generous with not only her pens, pencils, colors but also even the sumptuous tiffin that her mother packed for her. Compassion and empathy was what her face glowed with!
Girls would be animatedly discussing beauty treatments, fashion trends and their latest shopping trips and as soon as Ankita arrived there would be an awkward silence. They were embarrassed and disturbed by her presence. Once I heard a sassy senior girl who was the heartthrob of the school, remark, 'arre ye kya karegi beauty treatments karwa ke, iski shadi to honi nahi hai (Why should she need any beauty treatments, she isn't going to get married) and another one smirked, ' haan iske parents ke to saare paise bach rahe hain (all the money of her parents is being saved). Both of them guffawed heartily, callously. I wanted to chide them but a confrontation wouldn't have served the purpose of sensitizing them. I decided to introduce the topic in their class later but in a subtle manner.
And I got the opportunity when I had to introduce the poem Mirror by Sylvia Plath. For the uninitiated, this poem is about an aging woman whose skin has become freckled and blemished and who comes to check her appearance in her mirror every morning. The mirror describes in its own voice her angst at the loss of her beauty with advancing age. For her, her beauty is her identity and when the mirror disappoints her by reflecting her true image she tries to find other sources like the candles and moon who hide her blemishes and present her with a more flattering image.
''A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.''
While introducing the poem I had told the students a little about the personal life of Sylvia Plath and how she had been depressed over being deserted by her husband-poet Ted Hughes-for some other women and that she considered her falling beauty to be responsible for her husband's apparent loss of interest in her. In a state of severe depression and gloom, she had committed suicide sometime after writing this poem.
I had not anticipated it that many of the students, despite being so young and incapable of understanding adult emotions, would be so affected by the poignance and gloom in the poem. They retorted, even as I was explaining the poem, that she shouldn't have committed suicide for such a frivolous reason. They told me that beauty is not skin deep. Physical beauty is only superficial; what matters in the long run is the inner beauty, the value system, the compassion and love you nurture in your heart. In their view, one should be honest and accept her/himself and everyone else as what they are instead of being swayed by the commonly accepted norms of physical beauty.
That did it! Their faces glowed with the realization of where they had been going wrong. I didn't have to discuss and explain anything more to them.
I breathed a sigh of sheer joy as I remembered the words of famous poet Khalil Gibran, “Beauty is not in the face. Beauty is a light in the heart.”
From that day onwards I never heard any discussion of fair-dusky-black complexion, pimples and acne. If at all acne was mentioned in the class it was in context of healthy food habits and hygiene.
Ankita was the darling for everyone, sans any pity or mercy for her medical conditions. Nobody smirked and jibed behind her back about her lack of 'beauty'. She inspired everyone with her inner beauty-a loving, selfless and compassionate heart.
My students now knew, 'Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder'. And that was the most beautiful day of my teaching career.
I believe every woman has TRUE BEAUTY within her in all the roles she plays. For over 18 years across 650 plus salons across the country, Naturals has been helping the Beautiful Indian Woman get more Beautiful.
Today Naturals Salutes the Beautiful Indian Woman.
Presenting Naturals TRUE BEAUTY… http\://bit.ly/naturalsOF
Author's note: This post has been written as an entry to True Beauty: Blogger Contest organized by Women's Web in association with Naturals Salon.
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