Beauty of man

Which beauty would you see?

Men look at women. Being a man I know that. For the same reason, I do not know so conclusively whether women also look at men the same way. By logical deduction, I am sure that women do look at men, but I am not sure about the manner in which they do.

Amongst faces in the crowd my eyes automatically search for a beautiful one. If there is one, it shines like a brightly lit lamp amongst so many unlit dark lamps around. Yes, to many of us beauty is embodied in women. To us men at least. I do not really know whether women also find other women beautiful. And there is no practical reason why they should.

I have my own definition of beauty built bit by bit over so many decades. By what? Apart from the inherent subjective element, it certainly is the society around me that shaped the definition of beauty in me. Oh yes, perception of human beauty is subjective. Definition of beauty for an African man will certainly be different from that of an English man. Still in spite of so many different colors, shapes and sizes of men and women in the world, we find Miss World or Miss Universe having similar type of facial and physical characteristics invariably. Does it mean we have some universal standard of beauty accepted all over the globe? Ah...it is for you to judge that.

Unless you stand apart and watch closely, you will not be able to perceive how media, the all-powerful shaper of opinions and impressions in impressionable human mind, continuously works and moulds our minds. It exists for this all-important purpose and we the mortals exist to serve its purpose.

Beauty in man, as we know it, is largely a creation of media and societal conventions built over centuries.

No I am sorry, I should have said— beauty in woman. Really, it is always a wonder why almost always we attach human beauty to the woman. Well, is there any alternative? At this moment even in this apparently enlightened twenty-first century civilization, we live in a totally male dominated society. The ads, the hoardings, the beauty pageants, the women’s cosmetics and dress armory—all are targeted for men who earn much more than women. No?

After a bout of critical analytical thought though one perceives the frailty of the socially accepted definition of beauty in woman.

Well, what about beauty in man? Certainly this should be very important for women. And as the years advance we find more and more male models in the catwalk, more women’s magazines with pictures of good looking young males. Beauty in man, though enjoyed by the women through ages, is at last being transformed into a commodity. What relief!

But the relief is temporary. Again comes up the question—is there any universal standard of beauty in man? Just as in the case of woman, man’s beauty also is a product of—you know what.

At this point, taking a pause, we look around and find both beautiful women and men dotting all over the landscape. It is not bad that we have some universally accepted perception of human beauty both in men and women, just as it is not bad that we have practically a universal language in English. It aids communication and understanding across the globe—towards a universal brotherhood in far future perhaps. Quite an attractive scenario no doubt. Probability? Ah... that is the domain of statisticians, and we all know—we can depend on them.

Having settled this issue of universal definition of beauty and the question of whether only women are beautiful, I take a deep breath and ask myself, how important is the beauty of women to me? I would perhaps swim in a sea of happiness looking at my beautiful wife every day, every now and then. In this ticklish case though, it is well known that long-term close proximity may make one partner invisible to the other—seeing beauty lies far down the horizon. Taking away this factor, we reshape the question—do we want our partner to be beautiful? Is it very important to us?

They say—you always find your loved one beautiful. There certainly is no doubt about this observation. I feel happy at last—we have broken through the myth of universal beauty of man. If I love a woman—she certainly is a very—if not the most beautiful person around me. Here we latch on the word—person.

Finally, as we face the person, we look through the physical beauty and meet the inner self.

There are beautiful looking people and beautiful people. It is up to us whom we see.

Then as I stand on a mountain road at the edge of a deep ravine going down and up again in waves of rising hills finally crowned by bright white jagged row of snow peaks of the majestic Himalayas, I ask myself—can anything be more beautiful?