Beauty Is Only Skin Deep...

...but ugly cuts to the bone.

I'm a regular now at Le Café in the Novotel Convention Center hotel and as I strolled up for a cup of black coffee a small crowd was buzzing around something and blocking my way. I hung back and noticed most everyone was working to get pictures of a couple of beauty pageant contestants - Miss Brasil and LIVA Miss Diva Supranational 2022. The lucky ones were scoring a quick selfie. Apparently, these crowned beauties are in Hyderabad to promote the Global Forum on Hansen's Disease running this week at the convention center.

The swarm around the two women was composed of their entourage, a professional photographer, hotel guests, and even hotel staff. I waited patiently at the order counter while the barista was busy moving around in the crowd and angling for as many pictures as she could. Eventually she noticed me, poured me a quick cup of Joe, and went back to taking pictures of the celebrities with her phone.

As I sat there with my coffee, setting up shop to do a bit of writing, it was an easy chance to compare what was happening in front of me with yesterday's experience at the open air market just a few miles away from the hotel.

While slowly walking through the very crowded street market, my eyes simultaneously trying to soak it all in and keeping our Indian friends in sight as they guided us through the crowd, I felt a delicate tapping on my wrist. Looking down, I saw a small thin girl - maybe six or seven years old and something less than four feet tall - dressed in brilliant emerald green traditional clothes and gesturing with her other hand as if she were eating something.

Our Indian friends had told us about street beggars, about how assertive and persistent they are, and how to firmly tell them "no." The cast of characters in my mental movie version of this instruction were drawn from the homeless population I encounter back home - adults, frequently strung out on one or more substances and nonetheless looking well fed. I was not prepared for a child so young and frail to be tapping on my wrist and gesturing a universally understood signal for hunger.

Our eyes connected for a moment. Had I any money at all with me, I would have emptied my pockets then and there. In that instant, she had a better read of me then I of her. She turned and vanished into the crowd as quickly as she appeared. On to the next prospect, I suppose. Like cold calling for survival, begging for food on the streets of Hyderabad has to be one of the cruelest numbers game going.

I thought of the little emerald girl the next day while watching Miss Brasil and Miss Diva Supranational 2022 pose for the camera. And I continue to think of the little emerald girl, her face a vivid memory. The beauty queens? I wouldn't recognize who they are if they were standing right in front of me.

This visit to India has been an experience in contrasts. Many of these I anticipated - the colors, the flavors, the smells. These are everything I hoped for, anticipated, or expected. The prompting I've received from non-Indians about how overwhelmed I'd be, how gag-inducing the street experience would be has not been my experience thus far. The jobs I had working in nursing homes in the early 80's were a far more brutal assault to the senses. I can think of a few subway experiences that qualify, too.

There's nothing like this in the US. By comparison, and with few exceptions, everyone back home can be counted among the privileged.

Be thankful for what you have. Your life is someone else's fairy tale. - Wale Ayeni