desi beauty ideals

This post should have published on 2/15/2007, but it didn't.

Our office boy is getting married and he's hardly 20 years of age. I wonder if his family thinks that "office boy" is a career high. He is the junior office boy at that, and only recently got his license to drive a two-wheeler.

The office is collectively astonished at the news of his engagement. "It's like child marriage," they say. There was much speculation about his intended, how old she would be, and whether she might be his niece (it is a custom among some Tamilian communities that a brother will marry his older sister's daughters.). My own suspicion is that the two of them must have been caught in some romantic act by the girl's family - the good old-fashioned shotgun wedding.

The junior office boy had only announced that morning that in the afternoon he would leave early for his engagement. Our senior office boy, aka Man Friday, was the only one who could attend the engagement. The next day, we asked Man Friday about the bride-to-be, he only said, "She's black!"

Since her intended is also quite dark, I think that should be OK. The Indian or at least South Indian ideal of beauty is fair, a little fat and with long, thick dark hair.

Since I am fair and a little fat, I have enjoyed being amongst the ideal body types... just one more thing I will miss about India.