Throughout the conversation, he was constantly complaining about her curly hair, and wanted her to get to do artificial hair straightening. So did he mean to say she looked ugly in curly hair? If so, I would never agree to this stupidest thought of one of my ex-colleagues who visited me the other day, along with his medium sized family which included his wife and three kids. I was really happy to meet them, but was a bit taken aback by the kind way he commented about his wife’s long and healthy hair. Although we talk over the phone often, I was meeting his wife for the first time, technically the second I would say, as I’ve seen her once, from a distance, when she came to the school (where I was teaching) once, to meet her husband. An averagely tall, naturally pretty, and curly haired woman, she neither looked chic nor like a village belle who badly needs a transformation to match with her husband’s newfound NRI status, after having received a job in Dubai. I don’t know what made him create the very false notion that having very straight hair would make a woman more beautiful, and was really feeling bad for his wife whom he was continuously making fun of, wanting her to have artificially straightened hair.
Seeing her getting flustered with the constant comments about her ‘unruly’ hair, I tried changing the topic, but he swirled and came back to the very same subject again and again, which I think was a bit irritating and nasty. Although he was meeting me after a couple of years, he’s seen many of my photographs on Facebook, and has showered as much praises as possible for my straightened hair. Did I tell you that I had very curly hair before, just like his wife? It was so curly but cute, literally like telephone cord, however, I had to opted for artificial straightening for the sake of convenience, and not because I felt I would look bad in curly hair. So when he started comparing my hair with hers, it sounded a bit too odd and mean. Embarrassing me more, he wanted to me to ‘motivate’ her to straighten her hair! I couldn’t help but wonder why men can’t stop speaking and acting silly and puerile like him.
I really pity such people who give undue importance to looks, and have always felt the urge to shout-out to them about their stupidity. Some men addictively idolize women who don’t mind wasting countless hours in front of the mirror every day, making sure their hair is flawlessly styled and their makeup is immaculately perfect. I think they should try and stop confusing what one looks like with their actual persona. Be it artificial hair straightening, makeup, or chic haircuts, they all depend on the likes, tastes, and conveniences of individuals, and once can never force a person to do this , only because it looks good on someone else.
I don’t want to say looks hardly matter, and won’t say not to forgo one’s beauty rituals, but will definitely say not to fret and overdo. It matters and one has to look presentable, but not amounting to creating an outer layer of artificial persona for oneself, just to match with the fashion trendsetters. My friend’s wife is naturally beautiful, as far as I know, is a very humble woman, who is family bound and takes care of everyone much more than him. So what if she has a coiled or curled hair, she looks good and undoubtedly is the most lovable girl that he can have on earth.
My U.S. dreams
Last week I was flipping through the pages of my college diaries and saw one of the applications that I had send to a US company, hoping kick off a prospective career and built a stable future in the States, which was always my dream right from the beginning of my college days. If you ask me reason for being crazily in love with The States, I have a lot of things to say about the country which has always fascinated me with for one reason or the other, especially for the freedom to fairly and freely pursue happiness and success. With violence against women, gender bias, lewd comments and horrible eve teasing turning my place messy and less likable, I felt US would be the best place to get the right amount of liberty and happiness that one would always wish for. Seeing the abundance of prospective educational options, well paid jobs, good and neat places to live in, no dowry, no forceful marriages, rigid laws, less domestic violence and rapes, no ‘age-old’ hard and fast rules of society and community, and many other things that I’ve always loved to have in my country, my love for The States increased manifolds every day. Putting together all these ‘pluses’ and many more enticing factors, The States turned out to be the synonym of the dream land where I could fulfil everything on my bucket list of professional and personal goals. Although the September 11th attack too away a good share of my dreams and replaced it with chilling thoughts about safety and security, my US ambitions where never completely out of my mind. So, my first and foremost aim after college days was looking for job in the US, and tried as many options as possible to get myself a prospective profession. But sadly I failed everywhere. I was getting rejection mails one after the other from all the employers. Even after being well qualified, no one turned out kind enough to let me enter my dream land, and this made me shatter to tears.
My big dream about US slowly started fading out with the increase in amount of rejection mails. Things were not working out as planned and with no other option left, I made up my mind to take-up the job of a teacher in a nearby school, where I was getting just peanuts as salary.
Looking for a pretty decent salary, I changed a couple of jobs, and took up the job of a content writer in this city, but had my US hopes somewhere in the back of my mind. A few years went-by and soon the global recession started hitting the world, destroying the economy of the most as well as the least powerful countries with equal impact. Many of my friends in US slowly started losing their jobs, and were forced to come back. Being employed in a medium sized company here, I was thankfully saved from the hard blow of recession but thoughts about my long lost dream was back with a bang, but made me feel lucky this time for sticking on what I had in hand. I used to wonder why I was never lucky enough to get for myself a good job in US, but after seeing my friends return broken-hearted, I felt god has the right plan for me by making me stay-on here. Losing a well paid job is nothing short of a sudden huge blow on the face, leaving oneself shaken and terribly hurt, and this was what I was seeing on the faces of my friends. Although most of them managed to find jobs here, there are yet to compromise with their losses.
Then followed a string of tragedies, hurricanes and bomb blasts to name a few, and my dream slowly lost its lustre and shine. It soon became 'lifeless' and I moved on in life sans my US 'fantasies'.
At present I am happy with whatever I am today, and have almost forgotten all my dreams about move out to U.S. I think there is nothing happier than living a contented life, with family and friends around to augment the happiness. If at all someone is kind enough to take me to U.S. someday, I may perhaps visit some beautiful places and comeback to my homeland in no time. I know I would have a lot of problems and restrictions here, but considering the contentment that I am enjoying both on personal and professional front, all the other reasons take the backseat.
My big dream about US slowly started fading out with the increase in amount of rejection mails. Things were not working out as planned and with no other option left, I made up my mind to take-up the job of a teacher in a nearby school, where I was getting just peanuts as salary.
Looking for a pretty decent salary, I changed a couple of jobs, and took up the job of a content writer in this city, but had my US hopes somewhere in the back of my mind. A few years went-by and soon the global recession started hitting the world, destroying the economy of the most as well as the least powerful countries with equal impact. Many of my friends in US slowly started losing their jobs, and were forced to come back. Being employed in a medium sized company here, I was thankfully saved from the hard blow of recession but thoughts about my long lost dream was back with a bang, but made me feel lucky this time for sticking on what I had in hand. I used to wonder why I was never lucky enough to get for myself a good job in US, but after seeing my friends return broken-hearted, I felt god has the right plan for me by making me stay-on here. Losing a well paid job is nothing short of a sudden huge blow on the face, leaving oneself shaken and terribly hurt, and this was what I was seeing on the faces of my friends. Although most of them managed to find jobs here, there are yet to compromise with their losses.
Then followed a string of tragedies, hurricanes and bomb blasts to name a few, and my dream slowly lost its lustre and shine. It soon became 'lifeless' and I moved on in life sans my US 'fantasies'.
At present I am happy with whatever I am today, and have almost forgotten all my dreams about move out to U.S. I think there is nothing happier than living a contented life, with family and friends around to augment the happiness. If at all someone is kind enough to take me to U.S. someday, I may perhaps visit some beautiful places and comeback to my homeland in no time. I know I would have a lot of problems and restrictions here, but considering the contentment that I am enjoying both on personal and professional front, all the other reasons take the backseat.
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