The concept of beauty has changed over ages and generations. It varies from country to country, generation to generation, its forms changing with the passage of history and time. The understanding of cosmetic surgery stems from the understanding of beauty.

What is the concept of beauty in Calcutta today? How does it differ from the west? This forms the grass root architecture of cosmetic surgery. As the sculptors of Coomortooli would slowly carve the beauty on clay and mud, plastic surgeons carve this on human body.

Though Calcutta girls are one of the most beautiful in the world, yet there is a reluctance on Cosmetic Surgery. Either there is a misconception that it is expensive or there is a taboo, it is unnecessary. Neither of them is true.

Cosmetic Surgery is an art. With all other surgery, the successful completion of the operation without post-operative complications ends the story. In Cosmetic Surgery, that is where the expertise begins. Anyone can look at it and judge the job is well or not done. That is where the experience and artistic talent of the surgeon comes in. 

To understand cosmetic surgery one has to be familiar with the concepts of beauty pertaining to a particular culture at a particular time. Re-modeling a nose or contouring a breast is dependant  on concepts of the profile of the individual in relation to her socio-cultural background. Leonardo da Vinci’s concept of the human form may have evolved  into a different philosophy from the lithographic Venus. Ruben’s perceivable of the ‘Three Graces’ may be different from Leonardo da Vinci. The anti-fat evolution, which started in the nineteenth century, has taken its form of the Liz Hurley or Sonali Bendre of the twentieth century.

Calcutta has a culture of its own and indeed stands uniquely as being the cultural capital of India. Indeed lots of beauties have emerged from this historic soil. To figure, where cosmetic surgery stands in Calcutta  one has to understand, what is beautiful in Calcutta?

 My general view would be Calcutta still anchors to a mixture of Ruben, Raphael or Renoir’s concept than to the present day concept of beauty. But is it all the same? By carrying out a reduction rhinoplasty or augmenting or reducing a breast - are we making them beautiful.? Face, especially the eyes, stand as the key factor in the projection of a personality of an individual. Do ‘bat ears’ matter very much, where most of the ears are covered with long hair? What type of cosmetic surgery is applicable to Calcutta?

Copyright © Aniruddha Bose   All rights reserved.

Revised: 12 April, 2000 

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