Mirror Mirror on the Wall

What magnet does to iron, a mirror does to us humans. If there be a mirror in the room, we are bound to catch ourselves staring at it. Sometimes we steal a glimpse, at other times, we delve deep into it. As much as it preaches us not to judge a book by its cover, the world itself, does the very same to us. We are all very aware of the fact, that the first look matters, we must be presentable, make ourselves presentable for the world, to be accepted by it. Deep down inside, that thought never really leaves us, leading to two different ways, on either of which all of us are striding off.

One path is that where we take extreme care before we face the world. There are different ranges of it, starting form the apparels, to how we carry ourselves, with optional addition of make up, which is a whole new avenue all together. On this road, we are the perfection. This lock down period has seen so many of us, who usually go down this road, facing the world through the window of Zoom, with an appearance of remarkable precision, only on the upper half. The hair is set, the face is blushed, lips glossed, trendy top, danglers dangling in their correct angles, and below the range of the camera, it is a different world. The boxers, washed or unwashed, according to personal preferences, leading out legs that can give a gorilla a run for bananas. The backdrop in the view is tip top, shiny bright, while the floor down there has empty pizza boxes, beer cans, wasted paper balls, what else and what not. For more organized people, maybe things are not that filthy, maybe things are still in place even without a camera, but the self- maintenance, no cheating there!! That has come down a few rungs from its usual height.

The other path is miles apart, where lock down or no lock down, some of us have just come to the point where the world will have to deal with us the way we are. We will not back down at the peer pressure of presenting ourselves to the world's whims, and the story simply ends there. This path seems comfortable, but is the most difficult to attain in a world that force-feeds us with every possible idea and product, that would make us more presentable.

However, is it enough to simply prepare ourselves to be presented to the world? The person we see in the mirror is more than just that and we need to be kinder to that person, both physically and mentally. In our mind, we need to accept the person in the mirror, and trust me, in today's world of filters and beauty modes, the sheer nakedness of that person can be pretty alarming at times. And physically,it is just not enough to maintain ourselves for the world, our body has its own demands, which must be fulfilled in time. Whitening the teeth for a bright smile is not enough, the gums that hold the teeth together need equal care.

Acceptance comes in and for all shapes, sizes and colors. Our tones, freckles, acne, split ends, obesity, body hair, scars, stretch marks, all of them come together to form who we are, so why deny or try to defy any of them? The glorious poster girls who set the beauty standards for us, none of them wake up in the morning the way they are photographed. Even after brushing up concealers to places that we can't imagine needs to concealed, the photographs are further brushed up using Photoshop. The men, who are the baton bearers of ultimate masculinity either trains hard enough to shed blood, tears and sweat, or are produced before us, with CGI bodies that would suit the standard. And most importantly, it is their job to present themselves like that, to earn their bread and butter, that is what they need to put up. We, doing our 9 to 5 jobs, breaking sweat on road, coming home to chores, and ultimately going to bed with tired bones, we do not have the time, or the energy to maintain ourselves like that; with a little convincing, we could also realize that we do not even have the need to present ourselves on any pedestal. So the person in the mirror before us, the main character of our stories, is just what they look like there, and they are shaping up the story pretty well that way.

The physical nurturing comes in little bits and pieces, like we feed the plants in the garden, or take out a small piece of time to water them, that is all this person needs physically. Our kitchens are the beauty mart that we over look the most. Almost every ingredient useful for our skin and hair are available there. The wonders that some onion, lemon and coconut oil can do for our hair, or how some yogurt, turmeric powder and gram flour can glow up the skin, can give many chemical cosmetic products a run for their money. These are mere examples, several such combinations are sitting right there on the kitchen racks. The oral hygiene products can be put to shame by the regular rinsing of the mouth with warm saline water.

One need not expend enormous sums of money, to make themselves acceptable to the world. One need not push themselves to the limit to attain the benchmark set by the society. We are all unique, beautiful in our own ways, so any one benchmark cannot be for all of us, our benchmarks can only be set by us ourselves. And how we wish to reach them, or raise them further, all depends upon the amount of kindness we show to the person that we see in the mirror, the one, who will always be there by us.