Not too long ago, the subject of beauty was best left to poets to unravel. Now the case rests best in the hands of ‘facial re-engineers’. Welcome to an age where increasingly, the abilities of plastic surgeons, and not necessarily your genes and shape define your looks.

Aesthetic surgery has arrived. No more limited to hush hush conversations within celebrity circles, or counted as ‘breaking news’ in Page 3 gossip columns, cosmetic surgery is now for you and for me. And also for your next door computer geek and your best friend’s boyfriend.

“The belief that only socialites, actors and television anchors undergo cosmetic surgery has been broken. We have a clientele comprising middle-income groups, students, housewives, marketing managers and IT professionals,” reveals Dr Krupa Shankar, dermatologist at Manipal Hospital.

From non-invasive Intense Pulse Light, to surgical rhinoplasty, to injectible botox, the beauty enhancing offerings are several. Scarred skins can be made to glow, thanks to fruit acid peels. A short nose can be fixed with an aristocratic one by a nose job. A naughty eye brow lift, a seductive pouting lip, a frown-less forehead and a youthful face can be all yours, at an affordable price and with limited side-effects.

“Increased awareness, better treatment options and growing affluence have all contributed to this rising trend of cosmetic surgery. Surgery is becoming more acceptable and talked about,” points out plastic surgeon Dr Sushil Gupta.

Madhuri, a media professional, recently opted for a dental procedure to make her short teeth longer. Flashing her newly-acquired sparkling smile, Madhuri admits that she feels “beautiful inside” each time she smiles. “I had a long face with short teeth. This was corrected by cutting my gums to expose more of the teeth. It was done under local anaesthesia, and turned out to be less messy than a tooth extraction. It was simple with no side effects, and now I feel great,” she says.

“Madhuri underwent a ‘special veneer and lamination’ procedure which combines the aesthetics of the teeth and the gum”, reveals her endodontist Dr Dharam of Columbia Asia, who performs six-seven similar procedures a month. Other frequently done dental corrections include teeth bleaching and construction of crowns for yellow teeth to give a pearly look.

26-year-old engineer Sudipto M came under the knife to improve the contours of his nose. “My nose was too broad for my face, so I chose a nose job to make it sharper. I was not apprehensive about undergoing a rhinoplasty at all, it has become a common procedure,” Sudipto says.

Dr Anantheshwar, Head of Department of Plastic Surgery, Manipal Hospital, who operated upon Sudipto, asserts that increasingly patients are coming to doctors for facial corrections through ‘references’. “My friend recently did a nose job and looked good. Will this work for me?” is the frequently asked question. “Patients are no more shy. They do their homework, learn about various options available through the internet and sometimes know as much as the surgeon,” he elaborates.

Fifty five years old ad professional Gayatri (name changed) chose to undergo botox treatment two years ago before her son’s wedding. “There was not much discomfort. It made me look fresher and younger. The guests said I looked better, but couldn’t pin-point why,” laughs Gayatri, who has undergone two rounds of botox treatment after that.

However, even though awareness regarding cosmetic surgery has improved, doctors confess they have to deal with the psychological baggage that several patients carry. They have to bring down ‘wild’ expectations of clients to realistic levels, and counsel patients that plastic surgery is not a Bollywood-style ‘face changing’ exercise.

“We refer patients with unrealistic expectations to psychiatric counselling,” reveals Dr Anantheshwar. “We get college-going students who get inspired by movies, and expect dramatic changes that will make them look as pretty as the stars,” adds Dr Navin Rao, cosmetic surgeon at Hosmat Hospital.

Consider this. If you want a pot belly removed, you just need three small cuts in and around your navel, a tube put in and fat sucked out using vacuum suction. Naturally, under general anaesthesia. You walk out a day later, richer by three band-aids and poorer by a few litres of fat.

If that’s not good enough, try the tummy tuck. Once again under GA, the surgeon makes a cut along your panty line and not only removes fat but also a major chunk of skin, pulling the rest down to give you a tighter midriff and maybe even a new belly button.

Want to attack the problem at its root? Try lap banding, where a silicon band is put around the upper part of your stomach, using laproscopy and minor external incisions. The result: you stomach gets smaller, you feel fuller, earlier and tend to eat less. Smaller appetite equals weight loss.

If the above measures sound far fetched to you, then you are from a lessening tribe. More and more fat and even perfect-body obsessed slim Indians are going to amazing lengths to get better physiques and figures. Doctors are making wishes come true, though at a fat price. And if you think: no one’s going to get it done, just keep reading.

Tall and slim Raima is waiting her turn at the INXS Medical Centre in Vyalikaval, Bangalore, the mesotherapy clinic run by doctors Sangeetha and Keerthi, who treat cellulite with mesotherapy (a minimally invasive procedure where needles are used to destroy fat cells, they claim).

She has paid close to Rs 20,000 for sessions over two months in which she has “not lost weight” but her “jeans fit better”. She came there trying to lose her love handles (soft flab at the base of the waist) and they seem to have done it for her. “I’m quite slim but if there is a way to improve my body, I’ll do it,” she says.

The obesity specialist says she is sought by youngsters who are chasing the illusion that “slim is beautiful”. Amongst her patients are men who want breast reductions because they want to flaunt a John Abharam-inspired flat chest in tight fitting vests; 58-year-old grandmothers who want breast unliftment or thigh reductions and middle aged housewives who want to get rid of their sagging stomachs. “Eighty per cent of my patients come because they want to look better,” she says. In fact, she says she has used mesotherapy to remove a scar on her face.

Dr Surinder is another doctor who has tried his own treatment. Presently with Bangalore Hospital, he underwent liposuction recently because he didn’t want his patients to be put off by a doctor with a pot belly. “We treat areas where fat tends to collect: the paunch in men and generally the hips in women,” he says, adding, “mega-liposuction removes almost four litres of fat at one sitting, but every procedure has its limitations.” Besides tummy tucks or abdominoplasty he has had requests coming from aspiring models for calf implants to make the legs look better and body contouring, where male models want fat removed so that their torsos get the perfect V shape.

Dr HG Baladas from Raffles Medical Group, specialises in lap banding and operates in Singapore though he gets patients from all over Asia. He is now looking at patients from India, because he feels “they are getting increasingly aware about looks”. Costs start at Singapore $ 14,000. “Risks involved are minimal for patients with a BMI of 32 to 40 but increase as the BMI goes above 60,” he explains.

So for those chasing body beautiful, the options are many, just as the risks. But they will be wiser to know that even the doctors doing it agree that and diet control work the best.

This is cache, read story here