Can Sonam Kapoor dare to show how she woke up?

I was recently out with a girlfriend, a mother of two and in her mid-40s, wanting to pick up a night cream for myself. Turns out that I at 38, and going on to 39 in December, now fall under the category of "ageing" women who need an anti-aging or wrinkle-lift (though I can’t spot one yet on my face, at least) or youth repair serum - even as I vehemently insisted to the lady at the store that all I need is a suitable night cream that replenishes my dry skin.

My girlfriend was more gullible, and I could see her expression pale, as she was made to stare at the pores on her face in a gigantic face mirror, while the lady helping us also made it a point to add that not only was her skin degenerating, but she was also suffering from a serious sunburn problem.

The end result being that she doled out close to Rs 8,000, hoping for a quick fix. I, on the other hand, turned off by the pushiness of the saleswoman and her superficiality about ageing, bought nothing. Sticking to my good ol’ Vaseline, and the very Bong staple Boroline, for my dry lips.

As we walked away from the store, I looked back once over my shoulder at the retinue of women who looked so overtly concerned that their youth was fading and who were so keen to hang on to it - bewildered by the belligerent beauty gyaan - spending money on what someone else told them to buy (possibly fashion magazines, actors on glossies, TV commercials, runway and red carpet photos and movie posters) to retain the little they had left.

The beauty industry, globally, and not just in India, where women grow up being cruelly conditioned to be ashamed of their dark skin, height, weight, hair, skin… almost every external feature, feeds off the insecurity of the female sex as a whole - and how easily we can be influenced to feel beautiful, just by looking it.

"My husband calls me motibhais… in front of my teenage sons who also tease me saying I am fatso… and look like Bharati, the comedian," my girlfriend muses as we call for a cab, looking at me, asking: "You really think my face looks like a budiya (old woman's)?"

The same friend sent me Sonam Kapoor’s piece titled "I Didn’t Wake Up Like This", that philosophically claims: "It takes an army, a lot of money, and an incredible amount of time to make a female celebrity look the way she does when you see her. It isn’t realistic, and it isn’t anything to aspire to."

I read it several times, and while I agree it was well-worded and will surely strike a chord with the usual Bollywood-hungry female junta, parts of it sounded like a total, carefully orchestrated PR spiel, perhaps to demystify the perception we have of Sonam as a good-looking woman who would have probably made a successful supermodel (apart from Neerja, she has hardly ever acted in a memorable film where her acting, and not her fashion sensibilities, were more overpowering).

Also, I was just curious, while going through her gut-wrenching account of having been body-shamed as a chubby kid, that have we ever seen the actress sans make-up or even in a deglamourised role?

Sonam’s red carpet appearances, almost inevitably, are a runway statement. Perhaps, like all other Bollywood actresses, she can only voice her opinion on the price of flawlessness without ever really rising above it, stepping out of the tiny bubble that most actors live in.

Incidentally, only yesterday, I happened to watch Bridget Jones Baby, and while I missed the chubby and adorable Renee Zellweger, I salute her courage for acting and looking her age, 46, with all the fine lines, wrinkles and crow's feet and how supremely confident she still is, managing to make you fall in love with her, all over again.

"I’m glad folks think I look different! I’m living a different, happy, more fulfilling life," she said, dismissing web-chatter over her so-called surgery as "silly".

Will Sonam ever have the courage to walk out of the rigid boundary of beauty in an industry where youth is at a premium and over-the-hill actresses like Madhuri Dixit are clearly Botoxed to perfection?

Where Sridevi and Shilpa Shetty’s surgical makeovers are still discussed blatantly, as is Priyanka Chopra and Anushka Sharma’s famous lip job? And what then happens to Sonam’s lucrative fashion and beauty endorsements that keep actresses going when their films are a dud at the box-office?

Will Sonam ever be invited to Cannes for her body of work, and not as the face of an international cosmetic brand that openly discriminates and never appoints a dusky brand ambassador?

Does Sonam, who grew up a fat kid, have the balls to ditch the retinue of stylists, dieticians, fashion designers, hair dressers - the veritable army she claims works on her - and step out in her own skin?

And if she wants to be a role model for women battling body issues, can she do more than float a web article? Will she be okay revealing her love handles, pimples, grey hair, facial hair, dark circles?

Why does she still shudder to see herself in certain film costumes, instead of owning the film decisions that belong to her? Be trapped in the same narrow Bollywood sexist trap that she claims suffocates her? Will we ever really see Sonam in anything other than an Anamika Khanna or Prada? Her hair, unwashed? Her lips, plain? No stilettos. No fake eyelashes. No French manicure?

Can Sonam Kapoor walk the talk? Ever?

Also read: Do my thighs offend you that you have to ban short skirts?