I hate that kind of parties, where I don't know more than two people and not more than two people know me. And noone knows anyone really. Sort of those social functions. Feels, um... Boring.
It's a menagerie of personalities, some of them idealists, moralists and some rebels and dissenters; Comics and tragics and some generally uninteresting. All in all it's a collection of varied people, who realize that the room has a certain potpourri of a number of personas, and get a somewhat faux sense of glamour and happiness to be the part of this fascinating array of multifarious characters.
But there I was; doing a favor for a friend in one of those parties. I was hovering around the room trying to locate the only two people I knew: I failed, though.
In situations like these you have two options: what one can do is observe people or try to chat up with someone new. I am not really a hi-stranger-how-do-you-do types so I decided to clam up and take in the surroundings.
"It's funny", said a voice, from somewhere behind me, " to see that someone is also facing a similar problem regarding socializing".
I turned. There was a girl standing over there, medium height and dark-ish complexion. She looked, to use a Indian newspaper matrimonial term, quite homely.
"Hi", I said, "I didn't see you there".
"Of course you didn't", she replied, "it's hard to see from behind the head, generally".
I smiled. Option Two it is.
We introduced ourselves. I forgot her name. We talked for a while.
"So", said I, "What do you think of this party ?"
She replied "It's a menagerie of personalities, some of them idealists, moralists and some rebels and dissenters; Comics and tragics and some generally uninteresting. All in all it's a collection of varied people, who realize that the room has a certain potpourri of a number of personas, and get a somewhat faux sense of glamour and happiness to be the part of this fascinating array of multifarious characters."
Yeah well. I plagiarized it.
"You sound like a dissenter." I said, taking a sip of something hot.
Soup, probably.
"No," she said, "I'm Ugly".
I paused. To be brutally honest, she wasn't a looker. Some would even call her ugly. I, used homely as the adjective. Clever Me.
"I beg your pardon."
"I said, I am Ugly." she replied.
"Is that a class of people?"
"Sure."
"I don't think so"
She took a deep breath. "Look around", she said in a low tone, " and observe. what do you see?"
I glanced around, confused.
"The humans have created many distinctions," she continued, " on the basis of faith, on the basis of class, creed, race, language, nationality and sex. But there is one little distinction that mother nature has made, that class far supersedes anyone created by man. The class of beauty."
"Look around, Good looking people chat with good looking people. The average looking people talk to the average looking, The Uglies hover with more of their kind in the interstitials. Sometimes as satellites of these groups. It's an inbuilt class system.Something which comes naturally to us"
"C'mon" I said, incredulously, "beauty is only skin deep".
"I expected you to say that", she replied, "someone had to say that. Or else it would have looked as if humans created this segregation. It's pretty natural. Now if you had two people to talk to. One looks much better than the other one, where will you go? Obviously, the one who doesn't look bad to you. It's basic human Law : Beauty gets magnified, ugliness gets blurred out of focus."
"I don't agree. Beauty isn't everything..."
"You see, beauty appeals to us more than anything in this world. They say ' beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. I say, 'All eyes are the same'. We don't like ugly. We shun ugly. We attain beauty. Or atleast try to. That's the whole principle of the face cream companies."
"Ugly is real. Ugly exists. It stares in your face. Everyone avoids it. Just to not hurt the sentiments of the unprivileged the society says 'Its the beauty within that matters'. That's probably the worst thing anyone can say. It gives you a false sense of hope. The fact of the matter is ugly is bad. Ugly reminds you of ... well, ugliness and negativity. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. A thing of ugliness is a pain in the butt."
"You don't love a woman because she is beautiful," I stammered "but she is beautiful because you love her, said someone long ago".
"He was probably drunk" she replied.
"Physics teaches us," I rose, now desperately trying to find a loophole in her argument, "that things don't exist if we don't look for them. You change things by observations."
"Yada yada yada," she jeered gleefully, "getting desperate, are we? Trying to pull the ol' science-is-flashy stuff on an arts student. huh? Well, nice try. But the hard fact is everyone observes. We are human. We see. We naturally move away from hideous people and move towards the pleasing ones.
"Take yourself for example," she said as I blanched in defense of a verbal repertoire I was due, " You didn't start talking to me. I started talking to you"
"I wasn't planning to talk to anyone" I mumbled, "honestly."
"Yes, but did you ever notice that I was standing in front of you for the last 5 minutes before we started to talk."
"I ... I ... noticed everyone." I choked, "I don't think I remember everyone I see."
"That's never true" she said, "anyway; Nice talking to you"
With this she disappeared in that crowd. A conglomerate of various individuals, both the picturesque and the inelegant.
Pic courtesy @morpheusredux (http://morpheusredux.deviantart.com/art/Beauty-22796961)
