Non-Judgement

Judging someone. Every one does that. The world is full of it. Prejudices. After birth, we are taught to eat, talk, walk and probably the next thing is to Judge. You constantly judge and are judged - by the way you look, the company you keep, what you do, what you don't, the way you behave, the community or people or race you represent and in many other ways, possibly restricted only by the narrow mindedness of the person judging you. A person can change a lot about him or her in due course and generally create a different impression contradictory to the so called "first impression", and soon people tend to think otherwise about him or her.

One thing that someone can never change about them - is the way they look. First things first. Everyone is beautiful. In their own way. Everyone. But when it comes to classic, conventional good-looks alone, not everyone fits the bill. We are not responsible for the way we look. We can do very little about it. Some are labeled as handsome, some cute, some gorgeous, some beautiful - and then there are the rest of us - billed as "average Joe" or "plain Jane", and probably worse.

The media is full of articles and photographs of "beauty" in varied forms. Sania Mirza occupies more news space than any other sports person, and we all know why (other than her game, which is of little help!). Hrithik Roshan was termed as Adonis, reborn after a few thousand years, in India instead of Greece. Aishwarya Rai becomes a global icon because she can make different people "connect-to-her" with her Aphrodite looks. We have only good-looking people in the film world, ad world and we tend to remember only handsome/beautiful ones from the sports or business world.

Due to all this, the "not-so-good-looking" ones are made to believe that they were born with a "disease" that needs to be cured ASAP. Advertisements are all over the news, bill-boards, toilet-paper, cookies and what not, to make the average Tom, Dick or Harry and Rachel, Jen or Rita to look like their favorite celebrities in 21 days. These ads are not restricted to the few that follow. Lose 375 pounds in 17.5 seconds flat and look more appealing to your man or woman. Whiten your teeth so much so that your teeth color replaces the "White" shade in Asian Paints brochure. Color your hair orange, pink, maroon, violet, green, magenta or any other color that you can possibly invent and look exotic. Get a nose-job, this-job and that-job and replace all working parts in your body, by visually appealing ones, and be the next "hot-new-cool-thing" to grace the fashion magazine covers after Jen and Paris. Apply "Fair and Lovely" to your skin, eyes, nose, ears, hair and tongue - spare nothing. Bathe only with Lux, why cant you when SRK himself can!?

There is a show that comes on American television, in which people are shown before and after they get a "make-over" and they are brought in front of the audience who give them a standing ovation, while they hug their friends/family and shed tears of joy! Be sexy, feel sexy and look sexy is the mantra of the world.

Importance is given to looks by the whole human race. I am not sure if such things happen in the animal kingdom as well. Possibly, since the dogs and cats see TV nowadays and the other animals in the zoo are, well, trained by humans. All these things make you feel that looks are one thing that is of paramount importance and not having them is a serious personal and professional handicap, in today's world. It is given more weightage over character, and not having the looks that "give-the-hots" for others, make you not-so-well-equipped. We live in this make believe world and eventually turn victims to this false propaganda, and are generally convinced that we lack the main-get-it-done skills". We are made to feel insecure and weak.

Hence, the "average" ones fail to make-the-cut when it comes to getting better jobs, or getting better deals as customers anywhere, or getting a pay hike, or getting love, or getting to be the boss' pet, or getting anything under the sun for that matter. They lose to their better looking counterparts, for no direct fault of theirs. There was a research on this topic a while ago, and it was found out that the "good-looking" ones were more successful in the business world and sometimes "good-looking" kids were treated better by their folks (What the heck!?) than the rest.

I don't care as to whether someone likes the way I look or not. I am only bothered about whether people believe I am a nicer person at heart or otherwise. I certainly believe there are like-minded ones out there. I have many a time observed that the "not-so-good-looking" ones are perhaps the nicest, humblest and simplest souls I have probably known. Some are highly unassuming and polite, and their "un-noticeability" is a growing and a never ending pain.

On the contrary, one of the most insanely frustrating things about some of the "hot and cute" ones is their attitude. And arrogance. I wouldn't blame all, but most are like that. The way they carry themselves, seems like the rest of the world are the children of a lesser god! To such people whom I constantly run in to, who indirectly or directly try to belittle the rest of us poor souls, I have this to say - Congratulations on making the opposite sex drool all over you. We're all very proud of you for being able to come out of your mother's womb like that. You are a master piece. I bet it should have been very hard. Your popularity has always been sky-rocketing, and you get more proposals than you can count with your hand-and-toe fingers combined. And we truly appreciate that. But, you piss me off sometimes. You can be abusive and rude sometimes and you are partly-coerced to believe that making fun of others is also your birth right. Your sense of "being and doing good" seems to be a rare gift rather than a common trait.

That said, I would kindly request you people with above-mentioned traits to go back to kindergarten and learn the ABC's of how not to look down on people and throw your weight around. And the media, hey, you should learn to change your ways too and stop projecting few as demi-gods. Credit should be given to the person and their skills, more than the way they look. Advertisments should be more "Euphemis"tic. As of now, you people make me want to literally puke and nothing else. I can't help but feel sorry for the "average" world. I can do nothing about it though. And that's quite possibly the most frustrating thing of all.