Perceptions of Beauty: a Personal Journey

Well before saying what's beautiful to me, I would like to come clear on the meaning of beauty. This word is inspired from the ancient Greek culture which believes anything that is worth admiration, it's contribution leading to Perfection, is beautiful.And that definition itself is so Vogue that it leaves me in bewilderment to give the perfect sentiment towards this write up. So I considered writing on those things which in general I have been considering as beautiful.

I'll start from my first encounter with the word 'beautiful' . On my Lower grade level our ma'am showed us a picture of a tall, fair, and smiling girl as an example of being beautiful. From that day onwards it settled in my mind that the thing which looks good to eyes is beautiful. My take on the topic strengthened when our art book showed us a scenery of mountains and lakes and asked us to paint a scenery similar to that beautiful painting. Then my horizon took in the fact that not only people but also places could be beautiful. My father one day brought home our new white puppy, my mother called it beautiful. My dictionary swelled up with the fact that animals could be beautiful too. Once , when I was 11 we went to a fair, my elder sister brought dresses and exclaimed look Ashly how beautiful this is!! Now to the lists of fair girls, scenery, animals, added a new dress. And similarly the list got piled up with things like houses, earrings,flowers, cars, bikes, jewellery and many more.

Then I happened to develop a crush on some one I used to hate. It was a phase I don't know how to describe it without using the word "beautiful" . I used to sneak up to have just one look of him. I used to stand in lines in the mid-may heat just to see him wave good bye to his friends. That was enough for me. One last glance, those pretended fights, those banters irrespective of the efforts that used to wear me off were Beautiful. Even the tears I had shed after knowing my father died and that fake smile I had mastered and marveled at my friends was also beautiful for me. You know why , cause they gave me strength , they helped me to stand up and relish in someone's happiness. And that day I realised, Everything that makes anything a little stronger is beautiful.

Days passed by and I moved on. On my path I encountered few more obstacles , I fell down, bruised myself and some wounds are still far beyond the realm of healing, still I call them beautiful . Cause till then I had started to see the beauty in those wounds. They were not mere wounds they were proofs that I have fought and survived. One such day I found an old wrinkled lady of the slum feeding a beggar her share of food . When I asked her about it she just smiled and said, he seemed to be more hungry. I don't know, what was it, her smile, her wrinkles, her greying hair , my suppressed tears or the look on the beggar's face , which was more beautiful. And that day I settled for the fact that I'm no one to justify which is more beautiful, let alone most beautiful.

When I am at my father's place, I met this girl from a very remote place, she showed us pictures of her village. It was nothing like the Scenery of mountains or the oceans or the rivers, still she called it beautiful. And I'm sure, though condemned for pollution and every kind of population hustle bustle and chaos every residence will claim that theirs is a beautiful city. I'm no longer an elementary student whose definition of beauty starts from the pic of a fair young model. I'm a girl now, for whom every shade, every age is a beauty. I consider Everything that is a step towards progression of humanity is beautiful. Be that a piece of knowledge, an expression of emotion, an act of empathy, jealousy of a lover, prayer of a mother , sacrifices of a father or pure selfless help from a stranger , for me everything is beautiful.

This topic is so subjective that I came back again to the original definition of it, Yes for me Beauty is a characteristic of an animal, idea, object, person or place that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction. Beauty is studied as part of aesthetics, culture, social psychology, philosophy and sociology. An "ideal beauty" is an entity which is admired, or possesses features widely attributed to beauty in a particular culture, for perfection. And in the end I would like to manifest the fact that there is nothing like inner beauty or outer beauty. Beauty has never been or will never be, bounded to the limits by the physique or confined to the points called soul. It's beyond that , it's more like an energy than a consequence.