New Delhi: Of all the outfits in her wardrobe, Shefali Shah keeps coming back to one favourite: the kaftan.
In her recently released book, The Audacity of Being: A Sort-of Memoir, Shah draws a parallel between clothes and friendships, valuing both for the comfort they bring. Like emotions, she writes, clothes are also meant to be shared. There is, however, one exception to this philosophy.
“This bond of sharing comes with one non-negotiable condition: no matter how much I love my friends, I am never giving up my old, worn-out kaftans. In fact, I will probably steal theirs too,” she writes. “I have lost count of the times I have visited my friends, cousins or colleagues, and walked out wearing one of their kaftans without the slightest intention of returning it.”
She recalls that turning 40 brought her closer to the person she had always wanted to be: more comfortable in her own skin and less concerned with meeting anyone else’s expectations.
“Suffice to say, it was exhilarating to be free and stretch luxuriously into an XXL fit of an ‘I-don’t-give-a-f*ck’ kaftan,” she said, describing the feeling of being snug and warm in her own skin as truly liberating.
For Shah, this freedom also means embracing her imperfections. She makes it clear, in her memoir, that she doesn’t wake up perfect, nor is she a mannequin or a painting. She is real, as real as a person can be.
Learning to behold yourself
Shah’s relationship with glamour is candid. Makeup and dressing up, she admits, are things she dislikes; hence, she calls herself a total “antithesis of an actress”.
“Not every woman is blessed with Rapunzel’s hair, Noor Jahan’s flawless skin, Naomi Campbell’s body or Cleopatra’s beauty. And, even if she is, she may still lack self-belief. I want a clean, scrubbed face, loose clothes, wind-swept hair soon tied up in a messy bun and flats on my feet,” Shah writes.
For Shah, beauty is ultimately a matter of self-perception. If beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, she writes, then she must learn to behold herself. The world’s prescribed standards of beauty, in her words, “can go take a walk down the ramp”, while she walks tall, firmly grounded on her “pretty pink feet”.
She is unapologetic about her imperfections.
“Yes, I have stretch marks, but so does the sky,” Shah writes.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)
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