Sue This…

This follows from an online report I read a couple of days where a man sued his wife for being ‘ugly’. The man apparently won a $ 120,000 settlement for being duped by his wife for her ‘fake’ beauty.

The man married the woman after she went under the knife a couple of times to change her looks from the picture in the left to look like that on the right (some operation!!!). The husband was unaware of how she looked before the surgery and so was flabbergasted when their daughter was born with her mother’s ‘genetic looks’. He accused the wife of cheating on him since the daughter neither resembled him or the mother. The wife had no option but to reveal her strings of surgeries.

This new found revelation was unacceptable to the husband and he sued the wife for duping him and the court agreed with the man and awarded him the whopping amount mentioned above.

Now, for the real part as in why this report intrigued me enough to make a post. A couple of things immediately sprang to my mind:

# Pity for the man for being so shallow: I agree that he would have felt cheated and all but really, what kind of man would want to give up on his own child for falling short of his standard of ‘beauty’? And then does it not speak volumes about his commitment to matrimony. He probably married the woman only because of her looks and perhaps still did not know the kind of person she is.

# Wonder, if the reverse had happened: What if the girl had met with an accident which could have distorted her looks and all? Would the court still have accepted the man’s plea for a divorce? What if the man had concealed something like this?

# Is beauty really skin deep?: You switch on the TV and a major portion of advertisements that play on are for beauty products. The fascination for fairer skin, sustained youth, age defying creams and lotions - the list is endless.  I wonder what happened to the concept and importance of family values, education and integrity. Are we actually losing out on our wisdom under the pile of streaming glamorized visuals and a carefully crafted marketing strategy for beauty care product companies?

# Sonali Mukherjee’s Case: This is perhaps the most appalling and heinous crime reports I read in recent times. In 2003, a group of three men attacked Sonali Mukherjee of Dhanbad in the dead of night and poured a cocktail of acid over her face and body. The incident burnt her body, turned her partially deaf and completely blind in one eye.  Since then, she has been campaigning for justice however, for nine years, justice has eluded her and her perpetrators still roam scot-free. She was recently on KBC and Mr. Bachchan also put up a strong condemnation on her FB profile.  The picture below shows her before and after the attack.

In this case the life of a bright young girl was ruined and her face disfigured for life. However, her resonant grit and determination to seek justice has inspired many others. I am sure her trauma doesn’t end here and even if her attackers are put behind bars, her life is now changed forever.

If medical science and cosmetic surgery could restore her face like before, will it still be able to heal the scars that are now etched on her soul? Would society accept her the way she looks and not think about how she reflects in the mirror? I don’t know. Perhaps this post just raises more questions than it answers.

All I can conclude is that next time you want to exclaim how hideous a person looks and dismiss him altogether, try and take a peek into his/her personality before being judgmental and passing a verdict on the looks alone. Teach your kids to be more receptive and tolerant. Reprimand them instead of laughing with them if they make fun of someone for their looks and yes, be grateful for what you have. You never know which way life meanders the next minute.