By News18,Sahas Mahapatra,Shachi Chaturvedi

Copyright news18

Veteran actress Zeenat Aman, once hailed as one of the most glamorous stars of Hindi cinema, has revealed that she spent much of her life struggling to accept her physical beauty. Through a post shared on her Instagram on Tuesday, September 16, the 73-year-old actress shared that while the world celebrated her as a “sex symbol” and leading lady, she personally considered herself pretty. Alongside her usual thoughtful note, she also posted a throwback picture of herself from what appeared to be a film.
“Sometimes I see an old picture of myself and think, ‘You weren’t a bad looking girl, Ms. Aman!’” she began her post, admitting that if she ever said this now, she would be met with “an annoyed groan and a dramatic roll of the eyes” from her millennial companions. But she insisted that she, even though she looks at herself in a different light today, “never found myself to be beautiful, but I did learn to accept that other people did.”
Zeenat Aman Mentioned That She Used Her “Pretty Privilege” To Her Advantage
Reflecting on a recent term she learned, Zeenat Aman shared, “I recently heard the term ‘pretty privilege’, and goodness did I make use of mine! The world can be a cold place, and I learnt early in life to leverage every advantage I have to survive it. It reads hideously self-indulgent to state such a thing.”
Furthermore, the veteran actress recalled that even though she won a beauty pageant, worked with celebrated filmmakers and was hailed as a “sex symbol,” she could not fully embrace her physical appearance. “Perhaps one got more wrapped up in the performance of beauty than the feeling of beauty. Or perhaps such public emphasis on one’s looks depleted one’s emotional self-worth. Or maybe I feared becoming arrogant, and felt it far too vain and indulgent to consider myself beautiful. Most likely, it’s a combination of all these things and then some,” she reflected on the reasons for her non-acceptance.

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A post shared by Zeenat Aman (@thezeenataman)

Zeenat Aman Asked People To Look At Themselves Through The Eyes Of Someone Who “Loves Them”
Towards the end of her note, Zeenat Aman shared that she doesn’t have any unrealistic beauty standards. She also added that she sees beautiful people around her all the time, but she is sure that they, too, “don’t think they’re beautiful either.” She added, “Physical beauty, no matter how widely acknowledged, is meaningless without self-validation.”
The veteran actress closed her note, asking her fans and followers to view themselves through the eyes of someone who loves them. “Hopefully, then you will see your own light and realise that no cream, collagen or facelift can compete with the lens of love and acceptance,” she explained.