NO HOLD BARS

Recently I came across an amazing movie ‘Real Women Have Curves’. Finally a movie that doesn’t make you feel that you have GOT to loose weight to feel beautiful! Completely out of the box it can easily put movies like Shallow Hall and Fat Girlz to shame. It is the first of it’s kind movie with a lead protagonist who stays fat from the start to the end. She is not ashamed about it no matter how much do the people nag her. The film embraces any body size and shape as beautiful, the first where self confidence and esteem are not gained by shedding off pounds. Instead, real women are presented uncensored. Yep! There is a scene where the overweight females are dancing in their lingerie without being conscious of their bodies. Commendable, it is. From the beginning till the end they learn to change their idea of beauty. They learn to accept themselves in a society which only calls for thin as pretty. The film focuses on the fact that females are not just about looks. They’re not a mere object of desire. They have brains, emotions, ideas and thoughts that might just knock your socks off- without looks being the criterion.

Adapting the idea to other issues and not just limiting it to accepting fat people, the problem with us is that we all try to measure upto standards, set by the society- be it beauty, intelligence, creativity or any other thing. And when we don’t find ourselves upto that mark, we don’t think we’re good enough. I say, to hell with that! Haven’t we been listening all our lives about everyone being different in their own unique way…so, why can’t we accept ourselves the way we are and totally be in love with it. When I come to think of it, the people I like the most, are the one’s who are absolutely unconventional. Che Guevara, Oprah Winfrey, America Ferrera, Nelson Mandela etc, etc. have all broken the stereotypes. And in what way. I feel that it would be the first step towards being able to accept different people and respect and love them. No standards, no pressures- 100% YOU! Celebrate what you've got.

I changed my mind after watching this movie and I hope you do too, because it is indeed necessary =)

RELIGION: THE OTHER SIDE

I am not religious and I don’t follow any religion just to please my parents or other people in the society. I've always been criticizing the preachers of any religion for being blind and illogical in their approach. But strangely, sometimes apart from just inculcating blind faith and as to what I think, irrationality, religion has an innate quality of being able to transfer morality and hope where people have lost faith in the socio-political and economic system of the society they live in. We are a part of a world which is dominated by inequalities- social, economical, political and cultural. And when I talk about this side of religion, I am referring to societies where the above mentioned institutions have miserably failed to provide the people with the basic amenities and requirements to lead their life. Societies which prevail in the third world countries, like some in Africa and Asia, where people are dying of hunger, women roaming around naked, babies abandoned by their mothers lying around in their own feces, children sorting out the garbage just to find some petty thing to eat, where its not uncommon to find people with multiple forms of malaria, tuberculosis, etc., where people murder each other just to earn a piece of bread, where even the most educated people are left with no opportunities. In these societies people are left with nothing except hope which is what religion provides them. It binds them with morality so that they don’t commit crimes-thefts, murders, kidnappings, rapes and what not.
I don’t think that following a religion changes this scenario, but it does give people something to hold on to…faith and hope that they could lead a better life without surrendering into the world of crime and death. All I can say is that I am lucky enough to have been born in a society where I can lead a life without having to believe in the very existence of god.