Is beauty the beast?

I was watching Ally McBeal today. Neurotic, confused, apparently successful yet steeped in self doubt. Mirror anyone.

After you have appreciated my clever play with words in the title of the post we shall move forward.In today's episode Ally fights for a lady whose dismissed from her anchoring job because she is too old to attract the attention of a TV surfing generation. In between we are shown Ally's own fears of old age and the first wrinkle.

Beauty is skin deep. At least that's what we learn in good all girls catholic school. And then we go to college and meet..ahem..the guys.

Throughout my school girl idealism I never thought you should judge a book by its cover and yet over the years I have found how luck, opportunities favor the better looking. It was hard to accept the concept and yet shamefacedly I have to admit I have only succumbed and suscribed to it.

In our country where being fair is lovely(and now handsome as well), do we really judge people by the looks. And we are not even talking about the dating game .I know of instances where prettier people have easier time in interviews. Yes we have all tried to present ourselves as well groomed presentable best when facing a panel, yet if you have two candidates who are on par on every other scale would you choose the one that would enhance the aesthetics of your office more?

If I were to be interviewed with a bunch of PYT for a post, would I be scared? When someone walks out of an interview room and says lady HR instead of male HR does my heart go a tad disappointed?

Most of my friends would fall in the category of above average looking, have I subconciously made those choices? But isnt it true that after a point you stop looking at the people close to you. You stop noticing how good or not good they look?

I would like to believe my bf loves for my charming personality, dashing sense of humor, my glib talking (oh God, I should stop warna all that fan mail, who will handle?) but on the occassions when I do change from my mansize-fits all tee and comfort fit jeans and wriggle into suffocate-to-death tee and lycra jeans and dab on some eyeliner and gloss, why are the compliments and chivalory more free flowing. Why? On days he gets out the hair gel, goes overdrive with the cologne and comes looking all dapper, my heart swells with the "effort" he taken. Does it mean I judge him by the way he presents himself to me and not by the virtues I liked in the first place.

Its scary to admit, I would stop at a channel because they are because John Abraham would be hawking a new product over a detailed an analysis of the subprime crisis. Carla Bruni interests me only because she looks the way she does.Thats the reason Camilla Parker Bowles can never get the attention of Diana Spencer.

They say some studies have found that babies are also attracted to prettier peole and the instincts behind all this is the fact that better looks means better genes. Not sp skin deep, but ribonucleaic acid deep?

The purpose of this post: Do you judge?

Trigger: Dad's looking for suitable groom with heart of gold, I said I wont mind "looks like Arjun Rampal, body like Abraham and talks like SRK"

Verdict: Am searching in the wrong species.

Till next. From seedy cyber cafe in Delhi.

PS: New season of B-School rankings and placement reports are out. Advice to newbies of MBAgiri- take it with a pinch of salt. Packages like beauty is skin deep.