Designs of the Heart

I often incurred the annoyance of my friends for not using the many beauty treatments available to us today. My stance was whatever you do; this is the way I look so it hardly matters. It all changed when I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with many young hearts. Among the many things that set them apart was the importance they gave to their looks. All were well groomed and elegantly dressed. Prior to this, there were many such occasions yet I was affected by the environ that surrounded me that day. My thoughts raced … argued with my preset notions all through the night and I finally decided to reshape myself. Well, what if things go wrong was a fear that I could not subdue.

Any makeover to the face can be done easily so not an immediate priority, I thought. Hair can be straightened, eyebrows can be trimmed, streaks of grey can be camouflaged without much effort, and lips can be made smoochable too. Even if I succeed in adding a glow to my face, what about my rotundity? I was told about all the options-first on the list without which nothing can be achieved was exercise. I too realized that I needed to sweat it out and took to it immediately.

Day one- I heard weird creaking noises from within me, my ankles, knees and hipbones decided not to co-operate. Many good souls pitied me and came up with the next best option, the in thing now…yoga. A whole week of oiling preceded the actual attempt at any asana as I had the creepy feeling of my muscles holding themselves tighter to my bones lest they be torn apart. It’s anybody’s guess as to what followed and as expected after a couple of weeks the whole dream was abandoned. I remember having read about a sculptor who said that to carve out a beautiful statue from STONE, he only has to chisel, chip and scrape off the extras. I was wondering if there is any such possibility on human bodies.