For oft when on my couch I lie
in vacant or in pensive mood
They flash upon the inward eye
which is the bliss of solitude
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
and dances with the daffodils

Well, Wordsworth could as well have written these lines for Audrey Hepburn !

It was one of those dreary, middle of the week Wednesday evenings, when for a lack of more interesting things to do, I decided to invest my time in watching a movie. After frantically checking my existing collection and finding nothing suitable to uplift the heavy atmosphere, my eyes caught my roommate's rented copy of Roman Holiday. I am not much of a classic movie buff but I had a vague idea about the premise of the movie and had seen and liked its Indian adaptation so decided to give it a try. I pushed in the DVD and sunk in my chair, not too hopeful really of the entertainment quotient of the movie. The movie, in what seemed to me, dragged through her credits over a background of a bevy of Roman architectural landmarks and an unnecessarily jubilant voice over of a random guy (by which time, I had started becoming pretty apprehensive of this exercise) until the camera decided to take the most historic and important decision of its life. It zeroed in on, umm what shall I say, perfection personified (and if you think that I am talking about anyone other than Audrey, you need a face wash dear). Frankly speaking, I do not remember those initial moments very clearly :). What I do remember is the fact that I had not seen a face so beautiful, so fresh and so innocent in my living memory. Needless to say, but that was precisely what I required to counter the wretchedness of the mundane evening.

Oh how graceful and pristine did she look in the overflowing royal dress. How serene in that perfectly measured smile and those amusing, piercing eyes. How poetic in her movements. How musical in the intonations of her voice, how innocent in her youth, vulnerable in her inexperience and how sad in her simple desires. And I thought, thank god I was never there in person at the set. I would just have dropped dead.

Its been a couple of months since, and my admiration for Audrey Hepburn has only increased. What I have realized in the last few months is that the incomprehensible allure that Audrey had in spades is less to do with her physical beauty and more to do with something more quiet and subtle. Her charm was inadvertently expressed in the currency of her sad past. Those eyes could never hide the pain that she went through at the start of her life and that pain ultimately served as the bond which makes you empathize with her. You see, happiness is seldom beautiful. More often than not, it is vulgar and momentary and it induces jealousy. On the other hand, sadness shimmers in the poetic beauty of a dying flower. The only emotion it evokes is, 'I wish I could have helped'. Whereas in the beginning, my fascination had more to do with Audrey's obvious beauty, I have, since then, been more enamored by her subtle but ultimately more worthwhile qualities.

While it is easy to get blinded by those doe like, wide eyes, that perfectly sculpted smile, those precisely crafted stately eyebrows, the silken luminescence of those plaits and that excruciating detail with which each feature of that face has been planned, what makes Audrey so special is how easily and gracefully do these amazing physical attributes come together and amalgamate with her inner charm, her class, her civility, her sense of style and most importantly her quality of empathy to form an unparalleled specimen of human perfection. To quote a friend of mine, 'Beauty has a way of blinding people to the finer aspects of one's personality'. In the case of Audrey Hepburn, it just served to accentuate those other intangibles.

Physical beauty is fine but whats more notable and important in Audrey's case is the way she conducted herself in spite of her almost goddess like features and stature. Unlike today's celebrities who start flying at the slightest push and do not hesitate to resort to any levels of cheap acts to gain even the smallest amount of publicity, Audrey seemed to have that dignified, reluctant, classy approach which is the hallmark of true achievers. Despite being so famous, she never seemed to forget the simple facts and pleasures of life. She always had respect for others and worked tirelessly to her end for those who were in dire need of support. And unlike the present crop of dumb headed superficial celeb brigade, her humanitarian work did not seem a sham as it was never directed towards garnering publicity. The only parallel of her qualities, I can find in today's generation is the Swiss tennis star Roger Federer. Nevertheless, the fact is that superficial beauty can enchant for only so long. What makes Audrey timeless is her inner beauty, a radiance which emanated from within.

Finally, to sum Audrey's inexpressible charm in a sentence: je ne sais quoi !

-- Ankit