What is it to be beautiful? Fair skin, some of you might say. Some others will retort with "Clear skin".
"Large eyes" some will say, some others will reproach with "Mongolian eyes". Some will go on and on about "skinny girls and chiseled men". Some body positivity activists will claim "chubby girls and skinny awkward boys".
Is beauty really just skin deep? There will be others who'll say "Beauty is what you are from within, a superhero with an invisible cape or a supervillain with a nasty scar." "Beauty goes deeper than the colour of you skin, the orientation of your physique", they'll say.
I don't know what beauty is. Maybe it is the way you smile, the way you walk with you head held high. Maybe it is in the way your eyes crinkle when you smile or the way you make a snorting noise when you laugh. Maybe it's in the way you nibble at your food to keep from feasting on the lipstick you wore to a date, or maybe it's in the way you walk slowly and carefully in your heels praying not to fall over. Maybe it's in the way you hold the car door open for your girl or the way you carry your daughter to bed when she falls asleep on the couch watching 'Frozen'  for the twelfth time in her eleven short years. I don't know what beauty is because I have known not to feel beautiful for a very long time.
'Beauty comes with a price' my mother had told me, sweeping the hair from my face and securing it with a ribbon. "Never should a lady let her hair fall on her eyes". Oh, how I envied those girls who were allowed to flaunt their tresses. "You are not to flaunt your beauty. Do you want bad things to happen to you?" I don't want bad things to happen to me. I won't let my beauty show, I promise.
"What do you know about mathematics or physics? You are just a pretty face", sneered someone in class. Is it my fault that you considered me pretty? I don't want to be pretty. Mother taught me beauty makes bad things happen. I will hide my face so only my works shows. I will hide my body so they only see the wonders that the grey cells in my brain can make. I will hide. I will hide forever.
"What are you hiding under that dress, tease?" No! Please! I'm not teasing anyone. I will hide in my house. I will never come out of my room. I won't speak of it ever again. Please let me go. Please. They didn't let me go. No matter how much of a bargain I made, they didn't let me go. That was the day I knew mother was right.
My mother had told me, "Do not flaunt your beauty. Bad things will happen when your Beauty raises its ugly head."

-Arpita M.