The human body is a biologic marvel. It is also, generally speaking, very beautiful. A well-proportioned human body, both male and female, is something to admire and appreciate. The artist of yore saw the magic and tried to depict that magic on canvas with paint and brush. But their portrayal of beauty extended far beyond depicting human forms only. A cursory look at the masterpieces created by the Renaissance artists shows the depth and breadth of their reach. They literally painted the world around them.
Physical beauty is fleeting. Gravity and the aging process cause changes that can neither be prevented not reversed. There are however ‘snake oil’ peddlers who claim that the aging process in humans can be reversed. I have not seen any clearcut proof of that claim. Creams, potions and beauty products can help, but most of them are good at camouflaging the aging process rather than preventing or reversing it.
The famous American playwright Tennessee Williams had once said the physical beauty is transient – but beauty of the mind, richness of the spirit, tenderness of the heart aren’t taken away but grow. They increase with the years!
Nevertheless, it takes time to know people and appreciate their inner beauty. It is the physical appearance that comes across when we see or meet people.
A few weeks ago, tired of bitter cold and subzero temperatures, I left town for the warm climes of Florida. Now northwest Ohio where I live in the town of Toledo gets awfully cold in certain winter months. At one time, I used to enjoy the winters and snowfalls. The more snow the merrier, was my refrain. But over the past many years I have realised that I am not as enthusiastic about winters. Snow does not excite me anymore, and I can’t wait for the early awakening of spring that brings along temperate temperatures, gentle breezes and splashes of colours in the flower beds.
So, a temporary reprieve at Florida’s western coast was most welcome.
On the relatively tranquil west coast of Florida facing the Gulf of Mexico (now anointed by Donald Trump as the Gulf of America), the sea breezes are gentle, and the ocean calm and at this time of the year. The temperatures approximate a pleasant 80-degree Fahrenheit (about 26.6 Celsius).
Most people go the beaches to sunbathe and swim in the ocean. Most of them take off their clothes except the bare minimum that will pass the muster for public decency. That is where one sees all kinds of people; children frolicking in the water, young men and women hand in hand walking the beach, whispering to each other, and middle-aged and older people either walking or lying or sitting on beach chairs and recliners. One sees the ravages of time all around.
When there is really nothing we can do to stop the physical appearance, clothes come handy. We can, to a limit, hide our paunches, swollen legs and hanging skin behind colourful fabrics cut in such a way as to hide things we do not want to show. However, on beaches, with the irresistible temptation to catch sun rays, most of us don’t mind showing off our imperfections.
And then there are the mismatches. Some clothes are meant for young people. Those clothes don’t really suit older bodies. I saw an older woman, perhaps in her 60s wearing a string bikini. Or an older man wearing tight running shorts. Birds grow colourful to attract the opposite sex. Perhaps the same is true of younger people dressing in attractive ‘costumes’. But older people? I think we are better off not flaunting our meagre resources in public.
At the University of Michigan, there was an old tradition where students and faculty would discard their clothes on the last day before the spring break, and run through the streets of Ann Arbor - the small town where the venerable university is located. The date usually fell at the end of March or in the first few days of April. Sometimes the run was made with plenty of snow on the ground.
When there is really nothing we can do to stop the physical appearance, clothes come handy
It was a one-mile run and was called the Naked Mile. I attended one run in the late 1980s, as a spectator, when my son was a student there. There must have been hundreds of students, but the spectators vastly outnumbered the runners. One media outlet estimated 10,000 spectators who had come from far and near to witness the bizarre spectacle.
But if truth be known, not everyone running that day needed to take their clothes off. Some of them would have looked much better with their clothes on.
I wrote about the Naked Mile in one of my columns and that made my late friends Dr Zahoor Awan rather unhappy and upset. How could I, he fumed, an elder in my community do such a cheap thing? I really had no answer to his presumptions. I sent him the following couplet in my defence (which really was no defence at all):
کیوں جرم ہے دیدارصنم حضرت واعظ
اللہ دکھاتاُ ہے ، بشر دیکھ رہے ہیں
Why is it a sin O waaiz to look at the beautiful people
God has made them and we, His servants, are seeing His handiwork
Naked mile was started in 1986 by a handful of students but by 1999 there were 800 runners, one third were women, and drew 10,000 spectators. In succeeding years, the police started cracking down by arresting runners for indecent exposure. The event was shut down in 2004. Let us say it had a relatively short but decent run, but petered out.
I think what the students and faculty - at least some of them - did was to express freedom from the daily study, class work, attending classes, and yes, getting dressed for classes. In a way the runners at the Naked Mile at the University of Michigan had something in common with the sun worshippers who escape the cold weather to frolic in the ocean or just lay in the sun scantily dressed.
Raphael’s School of Athens: this fresco, painted between 1909-1911, shows leading philosophers, mathematicians and scientists under one roof, even though they lived centuries apart. The fresco also depicts the young and the old - an indication that aging is a natural and progressive process
Man has invented great things in history. I believe covering human bodies was one of the greatest inventions. Clothes make us look and feel good. As the English adage says, God made man and the tailor made him a gentleman.
In northwest Ohio weather has turned for the better. The birds have returned from their winter sojourn to the southern states. Any time now the tress would start growing their delicate buds that will turn into thick foliage. With the coming of spring and summer, the snow, cold winds, and forbidding temperature would be a distant memory. Until the next cycle!