But in the clinics where “dreams come true”, everything can be fixed, from one’s eyes to toes. At Dr Khundongbam Palin’s popular Shija Hospital in Imphal, Manipur, where 90 per cent of the client list is aged between 17 and 25, ‘Aryan eyes’ tops the list of commonly requested procedures. The eyelid surgery, or blepharoplasty, involves widening the eyes and introducing folds on the eyelids. “Students and young, working professionals come to me with pictures of Bipasha Basu, Leonardo Di Caprio, or want ‘heroine eyes’,” says Dr Palin. A young client, Shantibala Moirangthem, an aviation sector executive in Imphal, has just had a blepharoplasty. She waited three years to get the eyelid procedure done, saved up Rs 22,000 for it, and post surgery, enjoys posing for photographs because she looks “different”. “Earlier, plastic surgery was related to serious illness, but now there is a general shift to aesthetic surgery, especially among the younger generation. While in the last five years, there’s been a 30-40 per cent rise in clients, it is no longer about looking young, but about looking in shape—at an increasingly younger age,” says Dr Choudhary.