We live in a largely superficial world that makes it very hard to love the skin we live in. Constantly peddled images of what ‘ideal beauty’ is, airbrushed to an ‘acceptable’ skin tone and photoshopped to remove any signs of blemishes, wrinkles and cellulite. The flood of size zeroes and Instagram models drowns out the bodies and faces of everyday men and women, as we’re repeatedly told about what we should look like. We find ourselves aspiring to be like the people we’re shown on magazine covers and advertisements, not realising just how detrimental that is to our self-esteem, mental and physical health, in extreme cases.
How does one, then, in such an environment love themselves for who they are? Media and pop-culture hold up a mirror that shows up what we aren’t and realistically cannot achieve. Look around you, the women you see, with unique faces, features and beauty live under clouds of insecurity and next door Pammi aunty telling them they aren’t enough.
What we constantly see aren’t the real women, the real beauty that this country is home too. “When I was younger, I often felt very my body was very different from all the ‘beautiful’ women I saw on TV, or in the media that I consumed. They all looked flawless in a way that I found impossible to replicate—skinny but with curves in all the right places, glowing, fair skin with no blemishes, long hair that never had split ends like mine. The women around me didn’t always look like this in person, but on social media, there was this pressure to meet these beauty standards and make it look effortless,” says Anushka Kelkar, a 21-year-old photographer who just graduated from Ashoka University. For the last few months, she has been photographing young women for her project BrownGirlGazin, wanting to create a space featuring more honest and representative portraits. “It was important for me to create a community where women could openly discuss the kind of pressure that they are routinely put under to fit into a certain kind of beauty standard and feel less alone in their struggles,” she shares.
“I’m photographing anyone who identifies as a woman and is interested in being a part of this project. People contact me through the Instagram page and I ask them to send me a short note about their relationship with their body, or their thoughts about the way women’s bodies are being represented on their feed. Honestly, every shoot I have done until now has been so meaningful to me. Hearing women share their stories, and trusting me to capture their bodies leaves me feeling incredibly grateful. Every woman I’ve shot has inspired me in some way, and interacting with the people involved in this project is hands down the best part of it,” she says, talking about the kind of stories and interactions she has had with those she has viewed through the lens.
When your body constantly in the public eye, being policed for what it should and shouldn’t do, it’s difficult to maintain a healthy relationship with it. Whether you want to wax, shave or let your body hair grow out; straighten your hair or let the curls fly free, exercise, swim or do none of the above – no one should and can determine how you should feel about yourself and your body. Anushka elucidates on the matter, “Honestly, I think the biggest challenge is to accept that your body is yours and not anybody else’s. Of course, being fit is really important and you should ensure that you are nourishing your body but at the end of the day, no one else’s opinion of your body should have the power to shape your relationship with it. I think shutting off all the outside voices is difficult when women’s bodies are constantly being policed, but once you accept that inhabiting a body is complicated and your relationship with your body is constantly evolving it gets easier.”
The stories that Anushka has captured through her project are honest and personal, making them incredibly relatable as women open up in front of the camera, displaying at once a sense of vulnerability and confidence, reclaiming their own narrative when it comes to larger conversations about body image. It isn’t easy baring your deepest insecurities to the entire world, especially on social media, and all the participants that came forward to share their experiences and journeys through BrownGirlGazin are definitely commendable. As an office full of women with curves, rolls and stretch marks along with a variety of body types and skin tones, going through Kelkar’s beautiful portraits and reading the stories has been a heartening experience for everyone at Homegrown.
And it seems that the feeling is mutual with others out there. “The reception has been really overwhelming – I’ve only been shooting for two months but the kind of support this project has received is absolutely incredible. Women and men have sent me really touching messages about the ways in which this project has made them rethink the beauty standards that we accept so easily. Some of the negative responses I’ve got involve intense anger, where men and women can’t believe that I’m capturing women without make-up, or women who aren’t a particular size and are proudly wearing what they want.” BrownGirlGazin has grown to be a lovely collection of personal journeys to self-acceptance. We encourage our readers to view the on-going project in its totality on Instagram and read the stories shared by the participants.
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