Hi. Hope everyone is doing good. It’s been a while I haven’t shared a post on my Blogspot. I used to share things that inspire me either by hearing about them via social media, newspaper or from someone else and so on. This time it is tough to choose a topic and explore them in detail.
In meantime, I got an opportunity to read the book “The Atlas of Beauty” online randomly while searching for topics on google. It was quite interesting and inspiring too. The author is a woman named Mihaela Noroc. She used to travel to different countries of the world and try to capture the picture of women who were special, interesting, bold, achiever, fighter (courage to stand up against illegal things), supporter, warrior of their life, role model, good parent, dream catcher, and so on and this made her write this book.
The best thing about this book is that she did not write multiple large paragraphs and make the readers bore, but she followed several ways to explore the unique qualities of women which inspired her. According to her the appearance of the women doesn’t decide how beautiful they are. She chooses to expose the inner beauty of the women and called them “Beautiful soul.”
While visiting different countries, she used to look at women living on the street side or in any tourist spot of that location and take random pics of them. She used to have a short interview with them and collect some interesting things about their lifestyle; culture; work, and so on.
After collecting around 400 photographs and stories behind those, she just added each photo followed by its description below (not more than interview details). Though the explanation was two or three lines it was eye-catching and interesting. This makes us get attracted to the rest of the portraits too.
So, I have decided to share some of her portraits which inspired me in many ways. Continue to read more about it.
SUFFERING
Just by looking into the word each and everyone can feel the pain behind it. Suffering can be in two different way. Either we ourselves feel the pain or else we are about to stay beside the person (very close to heart) who is getting suffered both physically and mentally. The pain we undergo while encountering the person we love getting suffered badly is quite unbearable.
A short story about suffering from atlas of beauty: There is a woman called Sonali who is living in her native town called Columbo which is the capital of Sri Lanka. She had completed Bachelor of Engineering with bio medical as major. Also, she has a good job with decent pay.
By looking into her lifestyle (outer) everyone thinks that she is leading a happy life, but it is not true. Deep inside she was suffering from bipolar disorder from childhood. She took many antidepressants (drug used to prevent depression). She even tried suicide twice. But her parents were not aware about the pain their child underwent. According to them she had maintained good educational record, so they thought everything is in good terms with their daughter’s daily routine.
After a while, Sonali realized medicine haven’t helped her to recover from depression. So, she started helping and listening to people who was in suffering. This paved way for her to overcome her own depression, also supported many people to fight against their pain. She spent most of her time in listening to people who are (in pain) in need. Today she works for World Health Organization and for SheDecides (global movement) to fight for Woman’s rights.
Age is just a Number
Ya its very true. By comparing the generation of ourselves, our parents, and our grandparents we can encounter that our grandparents will be more energetic and proactive than us. It is especially because of the food they intake, amount of work (daily routine) they carry out without external help from any modern life technologies, and so on.
Adding a short story from atlas of beauty to make it more realistic. There is a woman called Jacinta who is living in a Mayan Village called as Chichicastenango, in Guatemala. Her story is quite interesting because around 1916 before her birth her mother decided to abort her as she was 50 years when she got pregnant with Jacinta. But fortunately, Jacinta born successfully. As she was the last child of her family, she took care of her parents until they passes away. She got married to a person who was quite harsh and brutal in nature. So, her marriage life hasn’t went well. When Jacinta turned 70 years, her husband passed away.
After that Jacinta felt full freedom and started to live her life as per her wish. Until 99 years, she lived on her own. Then she had an accident and broken her foot, so she started living with one of her granddaughters. By birth, Jacinta is humorous person and she is good in cooking healthy food (made up of herbs other than meat). So, her granddaughter opened a restaurant which is famous for healthy foods made up of organic herbs (recipes shared by Jacinta). As, she started watching Spanish series, she developed interest in learning Spanish language. Though Spanish was official language, she tends to speak only her mother tongue Quiche (Mayan village) until today. At 103 years she started to show interest in learning Spanish. She even requested her granddaughter to get her new hearing aid. Inspite of age, a woman filled with full strength, energy, and beauty till today!
Outfit
Don’t judge people by their outfit. In this independent world, we all have liberty to dress the way we really want to. We need to think out of box to accept the fact that the dressing or outfit of a woman doesn’t affect the society in either ways. Still outfit of woman is being judged by everyone and everywhere across the world.
Add on to this a short information about Marzieh from atlas of beauty. Marzieh is the woman who lives in Isfahan, Iran. This incident has happened around 6 years ago. While she was driving in car, two men using motorcycle came close to her car and threw acid over her face. The perpetrators ran away after this. No police could trace out the criminals though CCTV cameras are available all over the area.
This attempt was happened because Marzieh haven’t wore traditional clothing. Most of the people in Iran still believes that woman must not follow or adapt liberal way of dressing which is against their conservative method. None of them took step to stand against this stupid mindset. So Marzieh started to create awareness about this awful attack and approached lawyers to file a case to ban acid sales.
Though she was affected badly, she still chooses the path to save other women from being affected and trying her best to create freedom for women in future to live the life as per their wish.
Love
It is just a four-letter word which gives a power to do anything beyond the universe. Love has the power of either building a person or destroying them completely. Be wise in choosing a person with whom we are going to spend the rest of the life and cherish both good / bad with them. When we come cross the right one better hold on to them and live a life filled with happiness.
Adding extra love to this from atlas of beauty, there is woman called Di she was 86 years old. She is living in Northern Vietnam which has spectacular landscapes (good scenery); ethnic group (group of people who share or follow same cultural background). Di is a Hmong (the people who don’t have country of their own. Most of the people lived in
southwestern china. After freedom limitation began in mid-1600s they started migrating to Laos, Thailand and, other neighboring countries.) Di need to work hard daily to earn for her living. She had a beautiful life with her husband and five children. It was 15 years ago, her husband passed away. She still cherishes those memories, moments she spent together with her husband. Though she need to work hard daily for her wages still she prefers to smile. Till now she is wearing an earring made by her husband before he passes away. Love shines even we are separated. No permanent residence, no regular job but she once had true love and awesome memories to live rest of her life in ease.
Body Shaming
Have you ever suffered the pain behind getting mocked especially because of your body shape? If so, you can understand the life of Veronize who is living in Austin, USA. Most of the time people don’t have second thought after mocking someone for their body shape. It just five minutes fun for the people to comment on someone’s body shape. After that they may leave and have no idea about how the person getting suffered because of those five minutes. It makes them feel devastated and at times people start hating themselves for being in that way. It also kills their self confidence and they started being introvert.
A living example of Veronize from atlas of beauty. As per Mihaela interview study, she met Veronize in Barton Spring (place where people spend time in relaxing and swimming). In Barton Spring, the author encountered many women with perfect bodies (almost all the women look prepared for magazine photoshoot session). Among many she noticed Veronize, a woman with no perfect body but she finds something special in her. So, she requested her for a photoshoot in swimsuit. Veronize was surprised and thrilled.
Also, this was her first-time wearing swimsuit and she said ok. Slowly the author gets to know about Veronize. Veronize has started to accept the way she is, and this is the first step for her successful life. But this present lifestyle has many years hidden struggles behind it. Veronize parents relocated from Dominican Republic to States. Veronize parents created unique name for her daughter and dreamt about beautiful life for her. Her name was a combination of Veronica and Ezekiel as Veronize. At age 12, when Veronica was in her high school, somebody in her school spread a rumor saying that she was pregnant. Starting from that day, she was humiliated by all for her body shape. Inspite of all his mocking, she tries to remain kind and soft-hearted. She always spread love to all though in turn she receives hate. At present, she is working in holistic shop (A holistic approach focusses on a person's wellness and not just their illness or condition). She supports each and everyone who are in need both physically and mentally.
These are some of the true stories which touched and inspired me so I tried sharing them by my words. Hope it would be good to read. I stop here, also I request everyone to spend some time in reading the book "The Atlas of Beauty" which is available in online. You can get to know more about inspiring woman, challenges and sufferings overcome by women across the world. Each and every portrait along with description will inspire everyone in either way.
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