Did you see an ugly beautiful? Did you see a beautiful ugly? A beautiful face with the ugliest character. There is something in this: those who are ugly have a beautiful heart and are virtuous, and those who have beautyhave substandard character. Did you notice that? I have seen it in this nothing-to-do place—a very tiny, tipsy kind of place in Yebilaptsa. I have heard people saying so often that there is something missing in Khengpas, and this is really true because I have seen it. People usually work less here, and they eat more here; in fact, they drink more. They think only about now and forget completely about the future's prospects. They are living and dying at the same time. They don't have life as such. They don't understand life, they don't understand love, they don't understand feelings, they don't understand silences, they don't understand stances. They live a jaunty, perky kind of life.
You cannot have a beautiful woman—a woman who is virtuous, intelligent, and makes an ideal partner in life. If you have one, you have an angel.
And most girls and women in this place are truly disgusting. They don't have anything—let me be frank—women don't have anything as such in them. They don't have "woman" in them. They don't have the brains to compete. They don't have the energy to move forward. They don't have anything inside them because their character is loose. So loose that it may ruin them. They don't have integrity. Nothing. I would like to shout at them, especially at that red girl. They only have faces—physicalities. That too is truly fabricated beauty. They paint their faces like objects, and when they do, they objectify themselves. And this is what the women of Khengpas are: they have nothing, but they act as if they have everything.
In my life, I didn't believe any ears. I am a good listener but a very bad keeper. So I have never thought that I have my own. I didn't own anything as such. Only did I realize that I own someone when I got married. I have my precious wife and son now. I do believe in them. Anyway, this is another side of the story.
Now let me tell you about that Khengpa girl who has a beautiful face, one that anyone would fall for at first sight, but truly, she does have repulsive character—I should say. This is a small place, but many fishy things go on almost daily. There would be a boy asking for a girl's cell number in a bar shop. There would be cat-and-rat chases. There would be a boy showing off all the loftiness of his life. This is his valiance. Now, what is her valiance? She doesn't deserve this page or even a word if I were to describe her character. She stinks on my page. But if I were to describe her beauty, the pages would flower and smell. What is this beauty? John Keats says, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." But there is nothing true in her beauty. She has worn a red V-neck sweater. She has a plump, smiley, attractive, mesmerizing face. But this red girl acts like a bitch—a hungry bitch. She drinks peg after peg of Special Quarial and throws ruses at her new boyfriend. Gross. She holds onto someone's shoulder, and she literally embraces all. What a pity. She cries like a wounded bitch without any reason. She follows the boys and goes in search of her new boyfriend. She dares to shout her boyfriend's name in the night. She dares to run plag-plag-plag like a highwayman in the night.
One night, she fought with her boyfriend. It was just outside my living room. They quarreled for some time and threw some punches. I pressed my face against the window glass, and all that I saw was a red-shirted girl lying on the ground, throwing her feet and arms angrily toward the sky as she shouted, "FUCK YOU." And I felt she had fucked her own life herself. She is mannerless, characterless, and good for nothing. She can only live by selling her beauty—a beauty that costs so much pain to be borne by herself. A beauty that blemishes her life.
