La Belle Dame Sans Balleza

Literally, this translates into - The Beautiful Girl Without Beauty.

I am referring to the new variety of Beautiful women who have 'arrived' on the silver screen.
Don't know about you, but it makes my skin crawl when I hear Rakhi Sawant and Mallika Sherawat being called beauties!! I am plain horrified to see Esha Deol cast as a beauty queen and Priyanka Chopra, Shamita Shetty, Udita Goswami and Sameera Reddy getting away with the title of gorgeous!! I have to run to change the channel when they air songs of Deepal Shaw, Shefali, Meghna Naidu and others of their ilk. The Channel V's Get Gorgeous is absolutely aptly named - the eeeks models (!)certainly need to make an effort to get Gorgeeous! And most of the Ekta Kapoor heroines certainly need all the jewellary and saris they get to look presentable on screen!
To acknowledge the truth, so many faces doing the rounds on the myriad TV channels are so dully average and uninspiringly alike! So few faces that can make one sit up and take notice...alas...!

True, very true indeed that Beauty lies in the beholder's eyes and its a very relative and subjective quality.

But I just could not stop myself from writing about this - man! Whatever happened to a Film Industry that had once provided us with Venuses like Madhubala, Waheeda Rehmaan, Sadhna, Sharmila Tagore and Saira Banu? Or Parveen Babi, Rekha, Dimple Kapadia and Tina Munim? Or Meenakshi Sheshadri, Madhuri Dixit and Neelam?

I suppose the parameters for assessing Beauty have changed drastically. Perhaps a heart-shaped face or deep almond-shaped eyes or long coiffuered hair have stepped aside and given way to long exposed limbs, six-pack abs and a freshly waxed cleavage!

I hope you will notice I am talking strictly about Beauty - Not Charm, not Acting Skills - and not Dancing ability.

I am talking only about the way people have begun to percieve beauty differntly.


The degree of artificiality in beauty has also increased with time. It is so difficult to determine that what I am calling Beauty on screen is genuine or a plastic surgeon's, a cameraman's, or a cosmetician's trick!

Who is responsible for causing this change in trend? The cosmetic industry? The Film Industry? The Viewers? I wonder...I seriously wonder...While the neo-belle-dame brigade goes ahead full swing making it impossible for me to watch Television!