Bold and Beautiful

Long ago the Kingdom of Chandrapuri was ruled by a king named Raja Ananda Chandra. He was very generous and was liked by his subjects. 

One day the king was worried because he was losing his hair. 

He noticed that every day the bald patch on his head was growing larger and larger. 

Finally he summoned his physician and told him that unless he did something to restore his hair he would cut off his (the physician’s) head. 

The poor man did his best, but he knew that there was no cure for baldness, and one day the last of the King’s hair fell off and he became completely bald. 

The physician was arrested and taken to the place of execution.

As he put his head on the execution block, his turban fell off. When the turban of the physician fell down, the king noticed that like him, the physician was also bald. The king now realised that baldness was a natural process. Everybody and anybody could suffer, it could not be stopped. He realized that when the physician could not grow hair for himself then how he could grow it for him.

This seemed to have a strange effect on the king. 

The king immediately stopped the execution and pardoned the man.  

The main point to ponder here is why did the king want to restore his hair in the first place at all? What would've happened if he became bald?

Mainly because we live in an age where most of us increasingly lay too much stress on physical beauty. We want face lifts, hair transplants and cosmetic surgery. Why? For no other reason than to sport a different look bent more towards so called ‘beauty’! It’s a pity that no one recognizes that beauty is a quality that shines from inner depths. It’s a pity that we have narrowed down the meaning of the word ‘beauty’. Poet Khalil Gibran said, "Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart." No, its not only women. Men too place great emphasis on their bodies. Studies show that in 1972, 17% of men didn't like their appearance. Today, almost 50% of men are reported being unhappy with their looks.

So what is required to accept baldness? Boldness. One needs to be bold enough to accept one’s own physical appearance. Be it dark, fat, thin, plump, bald……… One of the meanings that the dictionary gives for the word ‘bold” is being ‘self-assured’. When a person is self assured, he / she doesn’t feel insecure any more about his / her physical appearance. A self assured person knows fully well that the physical appearance inevitably changes with age. The more we accept the fact that the beauty lies within, the easier for us to let go of attachment to physical beauty and age gracefully

Sadly, the other day I was aghast to find in the book stall a bunch of books on “How to feel and look younger.” It left me wondering why should one “look younger”? Does it mean that as we age we start looking worse? How untrue! In my opinion, age brings in more maturity and inner beauty that has been gathered by life’s experiences. The physical beauty of youth will fade. But the beauty of the inner spirit, when nurtured, will grow forever. 

True it is said that body is like a temple. We should take care of it. But life advices us here to remember to be Bold and Beautiful. Says Steve Goodier, “Let's care for our bodies; we'll keep them for the rest of our lives. Let's be thankful for them and treat them well. But remember, the real you, the essence of you, cannot be improved by a bottle or a pill or a salon. It is a beautiful and glorious light shining from your heart to the heart of the world. Cherish the real you - it's pretty terrific. And let it shine.”