This article was written by Jason Burke in Delhi, for guardian.co.uk on Sunday 18th July 2010 17.05 UTCIt is freshers’ week at Delhi University. In a few days’ time, and thousands of new students will flood the hallowed red sandstone floors and grassy lawns of the Indian capital’s best known institution of further education. Pooja Singh has everything ready for her first day at college: her books, files, pens and a new dimple, created on her right cheek by a plastic surgeon last month.
“I’m not nervous about starting college. I’m going with a new look and a new confidence,” the 22-year-old said.
“Personality is important but when you first meet someone it is how you look and how you present yourself that counts. So obviously everyone wants to look beautiful.”
Singh, whose parents paid 35,000 rupees (£500) for her operation, is not alone. Hard data is scant, but specialists in Delhi report hundreds of inquiries from middle-class students who want to have done everything possible to make a good first impression in their first week, including going under the knife.
“It’s only really taken off recently. The rush starts in May because term starts in July,” said Dr Amit Gupta, of Cocoona International Centre, one of a growing number of plastic surgeons practising in or around the capital. “I get dozens of telephone calls and end up doing eight or nine operations a month. Multiplied across all the clinics in the city you are looking at a pretty major amount.”
Most of the clients are women, and favoured procedures include lip enlargement, reduction of a double chin, and nose surgery. For the occasional men, fat removal from the chest is the most frequent operation. “I went for male breast reduction because my school friends made fun of me,” Bhanu Singh, 19, told the Mail Today newspaper.
B Narayanaswamy, Delhi-based director of market researchers Ipsos, said the trend was driven by the example set by role models on television and in films, many of whom increasingly are honest about undergoing cosmetic surgery. A second factor was the ferocious competition in contemporary India for the small number of prized jobs.
“You get any possible advantage you can. So much depends on networks, not merit, that you need to make the right friends, go to the right parties and get the opportunities you might otherwise not get,” Narayanaswamy said. “If you have the money to pay for getting that advantage then you do.”
Last week the news that Facebook users in India were being urged to make themselves appear whiter online, as part of a marketing campaign by a skincare company, caused a big row. The use of whitening creams is common.
Cosmetic surgery, although relatively new, is a boom industry in India, with an increasing number of foreigners seeking operations at a fraction of the cost in Europe or America. Some observers fear that, although exceptional today, such surgery could become broadly accepted among India’s growing middle classes.
Nineteen-year-old Sunayna Gupta, who will start a course in commerce this week and hopes to go on to complete an MBA, recently paid 35,000 rupees for work on her eyebrows.
“Beauty is everything. You have to face so many people and they judge you, especially your face,” Gupta said. “If you are young in India today the hardest thing is to have confidence and to be good-looking.”
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
