""further enhance her "unIndianness" by thoroughly making her over""
See that's my problem. By claiming that there is something that is unIndian - (that is, something that negates the concept), people assert that there is something "Indian" in the first place. So those of us who are not lanky, lovely or lassy enough to be unIndian in a good way will become unIndian in a bad way. Why exactly again is someone who is 5 feet 7 inches not representative of India? So my beloved cousin who has an Irish grandfather (that imperialist rascal) who is fairer than the Queen's Bum, and is about 6 inches taller than me - is suddenly not Indian enough? Frankly, I want to shove high quality eclairs down Miss India throats. Even as I convince myself that these people are not born underweight, and that media definitions of beauty (etc etc blah blah semiotics, biology, feminism, mushroom etc etc blah blah) - one becomes acutely conscious of the freckles and podgy parts. Of course it's emotionally draining to behold picture after picture of living Barbies, with their shiny hair and white teeth. Their neutral accents and lofty virtues. But to hold their choice to be that thin or that perfect against them is as bad as holding someone's fat against them. Some people train to be chess grandmasters, and others - beauty queens. As for women being lurkers. Kindly think in terms of percentage of women and men being lurkers. Not absolutely numbers. I used to love Thursdays. -- Neha Viswanathan +44(0) 77695 65886 London, UK http://withinandwithout.com | http://globalvoicesonline.org
