Strange creatures, human beings.

There is a strong possibility that no other living creatures have such wild variations in their appearance, bodyweight, colour of skin, hair, eyes, tone of voice, thought process…virtually everything. And absolutely unpredictable. Animals love each other or kill each other for reasons that are easily understandable. I think animals are far less confused when they are following the pattern of thought of their counterparts. Or themselves…The main reason why there are no serial killing animals looking for psychiatric assistance.

I think that is the reason why even a massive animal, called elephant is careful about handling human beings (And vice versa). The specter of a tiny (In comparison) human being sitting atop a massive, magnanimous thing called elephant is really a clear depiction of man animal relationship. Man to man relationship is slightly more confusing. Most confusing is perhaps man woman relationship.

Human beings are generally of three types: man woman and eunuchs. The first type has some things that the second types don’t have. The second type has some things that the first types don’t have and the last type has nothing. But each is alternately happy and unhappy of being the type that they are. Never reaching a conclusion. Going round and round like a dog trying to catch it’s tail. Regardless of all these confusions however there is a common trait among all three types of human beings: trying to look good and trying to outsmart one another.

Trying to look good is a huge subject.

The perspective changes as human beings get older. Till a certain age the kids looking good is the sole responsibility of the mother of the species. The person (Kids) itself is not bothered. In fact there is a huge pressure in repeated attempts made to clean them up and dressing them up.

Only a few years later the urge to look good becomes compelling. Soon a conflict arises in curtailing costs of the process. Hair changes color, direction of flow, density, flexibility. Curly hair becomes straight and straight hair becomes curly. In some extreme cases the head is shorn of all hair except some in a straight line down the middle. Or none at all.

The urge to look different is overwhelmingly evident and generally expensive. Depending on the environment in which these changes take place. Rings are in the nose, all round the periphery of the ears, above the eyes, in the navel, on the eyebrows and who knows in which other places. The color of the lips changes from Impish deep brown to Draculared. The amount of money spent in coloring the lips round the globe must be astounding. Don’t think I’m cribbing. I don’t mind. Just that people have become globally, uniformly, beautiful. Almost like an army. The Beautiful Regiment. Dresses are different every minute. And lesser in content. But who bothers. Skirts have gone from mini to almost non existent. Plunging neck lines plunging to eternity. Backless cholis. There is a TV channel devoted to frontless straps also. I don’t mind. Don’t see any body else minding either. The need to be noticed pushed human beings to stand out in a crowd. To look spectacular. Stunning would be a better word.

But the beauty of the self has taken a drubbing. The self has gone through a giant geared tooth of a machine called progress. From human beings we have become consumers. You might call it a return to the ice age. Lonely beautiful people lay dead in multistoried flats, unnoticed for days. Till their once beautiful and taken care of faces, manicured hands and feet rot and get disfigured and the stench is so objectionable that neighbors are jolted from their everyday life to do something about it.

But what can you do about the stench of the living dead ?