Mumbai : Veteran Bollywood actress Zeenat Aman, who redefined the image of women in Hindi cinema during the 1970s and 1980s with her glamour and westernized fashion, revealed that she never found herself beautiful.
Zeenat, once tagged as a sex symbol, shared a picture from her younger days on Instagram. In her caption, she wrote: “Sometimes I see an old picture of myself and think ‘you weren’t a bad looking girl, Ms. Aman!’ Now if I say these words out loud, I usually hear an annoyed groan and see a dramatic eye roll from whichever of the three millennials I spend time with.”
Although she never felt beautiful, she acknowledged that others did. “It’s true, I never found myself to be beautiful, but I learnt to accept that other people did. I recently heard the term ‘pretty privilege,’ and goodness, I made use of mine! The world can be a cold place, and I learnt early to leverage every advantage I had to survive it.”
She admitted that such a statement might sound self-indulgent. “After all, I won a beauty pageant, starred as a leading lady under India’s most respected directors, and people hailed me as a sex symbol. Still, I couldn’t fully embrace my physicality.”
Reflecting on why she felt this way, Zeenat wrote: “Perhaps I got more wrapped up in the performance of beauty than the feeling of beauty. Maybe the constant focus on looks depleted my emotional self-worth. Or maybe I feared arrogance and thought it vain to call myself beautiful. Most likely, it was all of these things.”
She clarified that she does not hold herself to impossible beauty standards. Zeenat also noted how many people she sees as beautiful fail to see themselves that way. “Every compliment gets redirected to some perceived flaw. I’m sure you do it too! Which brings me back to the thought that beauty, no matter how widely acknowledged, is meaningless without self-validation.”
Concluding her post, the actress advised: “If you want to truly feel beautiful, step out of your mind and see yourself from the perspective of someone who loves you. Then you’ll realize that no cream, collagen, or facelift can compete with the lens of love and acceptance.”
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