I have a confession that might surprise you coming from someone who writes about fashion, beauty and style.
I have never really struggled to feel beautiful.
Not because I am exceptional looking. I have been told - kindly, honestly, more than once - that I am average in that department. And every single time, some quiet stubborn voice inside me has refused to believe it.
I look in the mirror and I like what I see. My hair. My height. My smile. The way my collarbone looks in a boat neck. The way my shoulders round in a sleeveless top. I see someone I genuinely like looking at.
In a world of body dysmorphia, of impossible beauty standards, of antiaging industries built on making women feel like they are perpetually not enough - I somehow escaped largely unscathed.
I know exactly why.
His name was Satyendra. And he was my father.
In today’s world we talk endlessly about the messages we send our daughters. The products we use, the mirrors we avoid, the comments we make about our own bodies in front of them. We understand now that mothers shape daughters in ways that echo for decades.
But we talk less about fathers. About what it means for a girl to be truly seen by the first man in her life. Not seen as pretty enough or thin enough or successful enough. Just seen. Completely. Enthusiastically. Without condition.
My father saw me that way from the beginning and never stopped.
He used to say that there were very few people in the world as amazing as I am. He said it the way people state obvious facts — matter of factly, without drama, because to him it simply was true. He said I could make any clothes look great. He said of course I could be a journalist. Of course I could start a blog. Of course I could reinvent myself in a new country with a visa that didn’t even allow me to work. Of course. Because I was his daughter and his daughter could do anything.
When I started this blog he was the first person I told. He taught himself to use a DSLR camera - badly at first, then better - so he could take my photos. He discussed politics and sports with me. He woke me up at 4 AM in India to watch FIFA world cup game and explained what an offside is. He made me a cricket lover. He drove with me through Vermont rain at midnight to find playing cards at a CVS because we had forgotten ours and he was not going to let a vacation evening go uncelebrated. He was my partner in every harebrained scheme I ever had. My first reader of whatever I wrote. My loudest cheerleader. My most faithful witness.
He passed away in December. Cancer. Three months from diagnosis to goodbye.
I am grateful he did not suffer long. And I am devastated every single day.
Here is what I want to say to every father reading this.
Your daughter is swimming in a world that profits from her insecurity. Every algorithm, every advertisement, every magazine cover is calibrated to make her feel like she is slightly not enough - so that she will buy something to close the gap. This is not an accident. It is a business model built on female self doubt.
You are the most powerful antidote to all of it.
Not the creams. Not the filters. Not the body positive hashtags. You.
A father who looks at his daughter - really looks, with full attention and complete sincerity - and tells her she is extraordinary, builds something inside her that the beauty industry cannot touch. A certainty. A foundation. A voice that speaks louder than every other voice that will ever try to diminish her.
My father gave me that. And I have carried it through every hard thing life has handed me.
When I dress up now - for no occasion, for nobody watching, for a quiet Tuesday in my own home - part of what I am doing is honoring what he built in me. The woman who knows she is worth the effort. The woman who looks in the mirror and likes what she sees.
That woman was his greatest creation.
And she is going to be just fine.
For Satyendra, my dad. The first person who ever read this blog. I hope somehow you are reading still.
I love you, always. Happy Father's Day!
