Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Ex-altation

There it was...... staring me in the face........ the image I had waited six whole years of my life to see..... yes years.......
Not exactly the epitome of beauty I had imagined, as much as dreaded, she'd end up being...... sigh of relief!
Bad teeth, I have nicer teeth ........... Decent smile but with too much show of teeth and just a hint of dimples..... or were they laugh lines... not sure

Small forehead, the kind I've always wished for, everytime I tried to make mine appear somewhat smaller, by pressing down the scanty growth of baby hair around my temples.......
my only consolation on these occasions being that, according to Sherlock Holmes,large headed people,and I mean literally,are simply smarter.... I chose to conveniently replace the "head" part with "forehead" in my case....

Ok...what next? The eyes....... very ordinary, inkeeping with the eyebrows...... they don't stand the slightest chance when compared to my intense ones, outlined by the eyeberows that have always been and will be my biggest asset.....Hers,not even close.......
But,....... silky straight hair...... ... the kind I get only when I use a straightening iron and some professional help.... the kind, he mentioned long ago, that he likes.......

Any signs of a hidden collarbone? ...........no....... multiple fat lines around the neck, or may be a double chin?... no.......sadly no...... the one secret wish I had harboured, in some deep dark corner of my heart, the minute I realized the thirty odd pounds I had gained from child birth weren't going to melt away magically, thrashed to bits........ Or not. What if, she had simply put up an older, nicer picture ..... just like I had? I do know afterall, that she has mothered two children of her own too, I have my sources, you see ..... Snuggling up to the thought, I move on.....

Complexion: the black and white picture isn't helping...... wheatish I'm assuming ........ and I couldn't care less......Inspite of, constantly hearing as a child, that drinking coffee would make my skin darker ..... that my fair cousins (bordering white), were the prettiest children my father's side of the family had had in a long time....... and seeing my mom with her faithful ally, her tube of fair n lovely, according to her, "the only thing that holds up", more out of habit now, I've somehow managed to turn out pretty unaffected by my wheatish skin. The word that conveniently ranges from the light end of the spectrum through to the dark.Infact,I personally prefer the dusky kind, the kohl rimmed eye- Nandita das look,its just very sensuous.... don't you think?....Na, she wouldn't have made the cut on this one.....not even close.

A snub nose doesn't exactly qualify as an aquiline feature - something I've been conditioned to believe is a part of the checklist for a pretty face. Though mine got off to a snubby start, it eventually emerged its fountain head out, to an inbetween safe level of not quite there but passable, except for its bulbous tip ofcourse....... and funny thing, he loves that about my face....... even if due to the fact that, it provides our offspring with the chance of ending up with a balance between his large, and my not-so-snub nose ..... a balance she would have so failed to provide.

The concensus: Pretty..... yes certainly pretty.... but the regular, run of the mill pretty..... Absolutely lacking in the "Oomph" factor.....the factor most "not so good looking " girls attribute their charm to....... the factor that usually goes undetected in a not so pretty picture ....... the factor most mothers in law-to be don't, if not pretend, not to see in a girl to the dismay of their sons..... the factor, i know for a fact, I possess.

If you're wondering what happened to other parts of her facial anatomy,I didn't quite know how to grade them since they don't qualify as criteria for prettiness,....except for high cheek bones may be, which neither of us seem to have anyways, so....that's that.

The usual fb riffraff, favourite music, movies, activities etc. unfilled. May be she's just not as opinionated as I am...... may be, none of it is worth mentioning..... or may be, she's simply not as "f"ing jobless as I am ...... nyways, who cares?
Info:Location...... thankfully a group of states seperating us..... chances of running into eachother at the grocers'- miniscule and more importantly,I can continue to put up older, sexier pics of myself without being figured out just yet.
I always knew that I was more than just a couple of years younger to her, and her birth date confirmrd it...... Which I am sure she noticed too, cuz when I looked her up a couple o' days later, her year of birth was no where to be seen..... (an evilly smile).
One more look at her face and I move on....... the next day I go back to see if there's anything else..... a newer picture perhaps...... and then I find a link,ok something finally, to an interview with Eckhart Tolle.....Why does the name ring a bell?....think, think,think...... And it all comes right back to me.......

A period that now seems far removed from my present...... a phase of life characterized by the need to be different, resulting in a reclusive yet delightful at first and eventually painful phase. When the wonder of mysticism sought me out through the sheer power of the printed word, and had me in raptures- A euphoric state of transcendence that transported me, even if momentarily to the spiritual world of mysticism...... A world so simple and clear, pulsating with life force from the present, in Tolle's words - The Power of Now.
Then the realization, of the limitations of knowledge when compared to the depth of knowing,a realization that I wasn't ready yet... that I had to Know life in its fullness and its imperfections in order to transcend it. Hence, the renouncement.... in an attempt to lead a "normal" life...... A life in which, all knowledge serves as flauntable party talk......All of this flashing before me.....
Thoroughly,enraged by the suggestion of her equalling up to me,I think,how on earth did she gain access into my world? May be,she's just showing off the only book she has, in her right senses, ever read from that genre'.... And in any case, since I had privy to it long before she did, it clearly establishes my seniority in the matter.

Still trying to digest the audacity of fate,I look her up once again....... And this time I notice something else about her........
She certainly seems happy,I think to myself......
Our new found similarity, instantly, if not completely replacing our older, more heart wrenching one. The Ex- now, a little more than just that......

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