FABULOUS AT EVERY AGE

Bazaar India speaks with six women about overturning the shelf life of beauty.

- MAAHI SHAH

Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. Perhaps. Over the years, however, due to repeated conditioning, indoctrinating, and redefining the term to suit vested interests, beauty became outwardly defined, confined to an exhaustive list of norms, and came with a shelf life. Coupled with the ways of our lop-sided and male-favouring world, women have, more often than not, been at the receiving end of judgments, boxed into stringent stereotypes, and goaded into conforming to one kind of beauty. This has made us forget what beauty means in the first place. So, we decided to overturn the convention. Bazaar India speaks with six women—two actors, a dancer, an actor-turned- filmmaker, a cricketer, and a model—who offer new perceptions of beauty that do not have a yardstick or an expiry date, and the kind that grows gracefully—within us and all around us.

SHEEBA CHADHA
Actor

Sheeba Chadha takes us through her journey as an actor, and how perceptions of beauty have evolved over the years. “I remember in my home, the idea or concept of beauty was never discussed. My mother would never compliment anybody on their beauty,” she recalls.

For Sheeba, the idea of beauty continues to be influenced by the various visual mediums we’re exposed to. “I feel like we are undergoing a phenomena in terms of social media, which offers paradoxes all the time. So, while there is a lot of conversation about beauty becoming inclusive and how we’re fighting our old demons and old belief patterns around the idea of what we consider beautiful, at the same time, I don’t think it has been more horrific, forbidding, and alienating to carry the idea of beauty as it is now,” she says.