If the pen is picked up purposefully after more than a year, one tends to take one cautious step at a time. In a desperate pursuit of a flow. And the hope, that once it’s found, the results will leave them awestruck and humbled. Hope is what keeps us mankind going, isn’t it? Its hope that keeps a mother from slapping her nasty tongued son that one day, the tongue will mellow down. It’s the hope of not being caught that terrorists hold on to when they hatch another lethal plot. And hope again that 2012 won’t really happen that lets movie stars sign films premièring in 2014. It’s all connected to something so simple, and yet so mighty.
Speaking of might, my mind currently happens to hold a mighty dispute within itself. Something I keep gnawing at and then tossing away, unfinished. So suddenly, I feel the need to vent. Let me be more specific. Recently, I heard of a distant cousin being rejected by a family because "She was south Indian dark!" That statement left me fuming. And disturbed. It’s horrifying that this mentality still dares to exist amongst the seemingly educated public. In this time and century, when inter continent marriages hardly raise an eyebrow and Katy Perry sings passionately about supersonic aliens. What I’m trying to say is that something like the COLOUR has been trivialized to the extent of not mattering at all.
Or so I very naively assumed! But a little bit of TV sent me tumbling into a staggering reality, which was suddenly all around me. I am referring to this absurdly persuasive tendency people seem to possess. The Inappropriate Glamorization of the Fair Skin. Look at the heaping cosmetic commercials. The putting of ‘fair’ and ‘lovely’ or ‘white’ and ‘beauty’ together. There’s “white perfect” and “natural white” and “fairever”. We didn’t even stop at that and actually came up with a “fair” and “handsome”! And trust me, these are just a few known handful. And they are rapidly catching up. Fairness creams and face packs actually have a market of a whopping 2,000 crores in our country.
It’s preposterous. How a certain mentality compels one to be ashamed of being dark and strive towards perfection which is somehow synonymous to being fair! A director suddenly notices a girl after she’s glowing with fairness. A random girl lightens her skin tones and wins beauty pageants! I mean. How? We also have soaps about the woeful story of a dark and a fair sister where the dark one undoubtedly has to face a horde of hardships. A bizarre victimization, if you think about it. Of a perfectly normal human being.
Fair skin was considered superior before. That was gotten rid of. But it just keeps seeping back in. Like a tea stain that refuses to leave an otherwise perfectly functioning shirt. It’s like a craving that refuses to be exhausted, a fetish and an obsession that threatens to devour one gullible mind after another. The media seems to be hell bent on accelerating this epidemic. And our country has around 36 million TV users. A seemingly innocent commercial that holds roots in one’s mind. Its perplexing how most people will stop at nothing but pure white marble. There have been incidents where girls as young as 6 have inquired about fairness treatments. The woman’s complexion is specially taken into consideration so that the couple may have fairer children! It bewilders me how one can even think of sorting equality within religions, classes, castes etc. while we are still stuck with something so ridiculously insignificant.
Meanwhile, the color discriminator’s son did finally find his piece of the moon. While my smart, very educated cousin with a respectable bank job, a delightful sense of humor and slightly more Melanin pigment remains matchless…waiting…hoping.
Speaking of might, my mind currently happens to hold a mighty dispute within itself. Something I keep gnawing at and then tossing away, unfinished. So suddenly, I feel the need to vent. Let me be more specific. Recently, I heard of a distant cousin being rejected by a family because "She was south Indian dark!" That statement left me fuming. And disturbed. It’s horrifying that this mentality still dares to exist amongst the seemingly educated public. In this time and century, when inter continent marriages hardly raise an eyebrow and Katy Perry sings passionately about supersonic aliens. What I’m trying to say is that something like the COLOUR has been trivialized to the extent of not mattering at all.
Or so I very naively assumed! But a little bit of TV sent me tumbling into a staggering reality, which was suddenly all around me. I am referring to this absurdly persuasive tendency people seem to possess. The Inappropriate Glamorization of the Fair Skin. Look at the heaping cosmetic commercials. The putting of ‘fair’ and ‘lovely’ or ‘white’ and ‘beauty’ together. There’s “white perfect” and “natural white” and “fairever”. We didn’t even stop at that and actually came up with a “fair” and “handsome”! And trust me, these are just a few known handful. And they are rapidly catching up. Fairness creams and face packs actually have a market of a whopping 2,000 crores in our country.
It’s preposterous. How a certain mentality compels one to be ashamed of being dark and strive towards perfection which is somehow synonymous to being fair! A director suddenly notices a girl after she’s glowing with fairness. A random girl lightens her skin tones and wins beauty pageants! I mean. How? We also have soaps about the woeful story of a dark and a fair sister where the dark one undoubtedly has to face a horde of hardships. A bizarre victimization, if you think about it. Of a perfectly normal human being.
Fair skin was considered superior before. That was gotten rid of. But it just keeps seeping back in. Like a tea stain that refuses to leave an otherwise perfectly functioning shirt. It’s like a craving that refuses to be exhausted, a fetish and an obsession that threatens to devour one gullible mind after another. The media seems to be hell bent on accelerating this epidemic. And our country has around 36 million TV users. A seemingly innocent commercial that holds roots in one’s mind. Its perplexing how most people will stop at nothing but pure white marble. There have been incidents where girls as young as 6 have inquired about fairness treatments. The woman’s complexion is specially taken into consideration so that the couple may have fairer children! It bewilders me how one can even think of sorting equality within religions, classes, castes etc. while we are still stuck with something so ridiculously insignificant.
Meanwhile, the color discriminator’s son did finally find his piece of the moon. While my smart, very educated cousin with a respectable bank job, a delightful sense of humor and slightly more Melanin pigment remains matchless…waiting…hoping.
