Three Folds Across Her Middle

http://unlikelystories.org/sayeed0308.shtml

(article at link above)


The failure of the nation state in South Asia is reflected in the region's cinema, which clearly shoes a lack of shared imagination, with films being classified as A grade and C grade, corresponding to their elite and mass audiences respectively. Unsurprisingly, the female form shows the same schizophrenia at work, with the mass audience demanding the traditional, heavy female form, and the westernized elite plumping for her svelte, westernized counterpart.


Excerpt: "But how do we explain the figure on the catwalk? For explain her we must, since the ideal of feminine beauty in the Indian subcontinent still clings to that outlined centuries ago in The RatiRahasya (Secrets of Love):


She in whom the following signs and symptoms appear is called a Padmini. Her face is pleasing as the full moon; her body, well clothed with flesh, is soft as the Shiras or mustard flower, her skin is fine, tender and fair as the yellow lotus, never dark colored. Her eyes are bright and beautiful as the orbs of the fawn, well cut, and with reddish corners. Her bosom is hard, full and high; she has a good neck; her nose is straight and lovely, and three folds or wrinkles cross her middle - about the umbilical region."