The Parameters of Beauty

Yesterday afternoon, after attending a friend's birthday party at a Chinese restaurant, my friend Sergio and I decided to finish it with a cup of Mocha each. We sat down on those ridiculously comfortable chairs facing the street and I knew that it was time for a long contemplative discussion. It is always related to India because there is so much to talk about India in various ways. I have grown accustomed to be the focal point of group discussions because I come from India. Sometimes I even find myself Googling things up because I have been bowled over by specific questions that I have no idea about ( What is the exact population and area in square kilometers of your city?)!!
So I had braced myself for one of the tough ones. He sighed a big sigh in his mug and looked at me. Then he said, " I am curious to go to India and find out how beautiful Indian women can get. Although I personally think, without offending you, that the Indian race is not particularly on top of the world beauty rankings. I mean looking at you I can say that Indian women can be pretty ( Aha!! *Bow*) but I have never seen a handsome Indian man in Brisbane."
Then he sensed that I was getting a bit too full with the latent compliment so he asked me to come back to the ground state and take part in the discussion. He went on to say that Indians were wise, philosophical, tolerant, sincere, content, calm and meditative but far from being handsome.
Just a few days back when we were watching youtube videos from each other's countries, I showed him a Bollywood song with Shahrukh Khan and he was shocked at how a guy with such an out-of-place-big-nosed-ugly-face could make it so big in Bollywood.

To be honest I had never analyzed Shahrukh Khan for his beauty and I was introduced to this whole superficial analysis of looks when I came here but I was pretty sure that I would eventually find a few handsome men on the street to prove him wrong.
We were very close to the Indian market and every few minutes, we could see an "All-Indian" family trotting along to buy groceries.
I guess I was plain unlucky or Sergio was right. Not even a single man that passed by could qualify as "handsome" on global standards. We sampled some twenty odd men on a scale of 1 to 10 and we did not even have an average of 4. I was angered and frustrated. Then we began walking towards the university and decided to take the longer route to find more Indians. On every corner we found a few but again, none of them scored well on the Greek's beauty scale.
I thought of Rhitik Roshan, but then I remembered that he is often described as the "Greek God" of Bollywood.
The middle-aged Indian men abroad can be identified with the way they dress. No matter which country they are in, they will always dress like they are in India and one of the unique features of these middle-aged men is that they would sit in a bar with their beer mugs and gossip about their respective bosses just the way they would in India. Once we overheard such a piece of juicy gossip and my friends wanted me to translate it for them. I was doing well till the time things got to the point where they started identifying the gossipees using their mothers and sisters. After that I had to do a short lecture on phonetically correct Indian swear words. My international friends have dutifully included those in their arsenal of abuses when life turns its back on them.
At the end of the day, after a long contemplation I was really sad to agree with Sergio but even with their funny noses and a tad too oily brown complexion, Indian men are not behind in regaling the Aussies with their cute peculiarities.
We have an 'Indian Accent Competition' in the post grad room sometimes and unfortunately I never win it even though I am the only Indian on board.
Sometimes I go for a Yoga class with all of them and it is as cult as it gets. :)
Whatever we are on a 'Global Beauty Scale', when you get to know somebody well, all this analysis suddenly turns murky. So when I gradually turned from 'The New Indian PhD Student" to "Sergio's Indian friend" to "Saee", I realized that apart from everything that I am, I also happen to be an Indian and a really happy one at that!