We have come a long way indeed. Or so say the articles in newspapers and magazines. We have come to believe that yes, we have become more inclusive, more tolerant and less discriminatory of our complexion which is generally brown/ dusky/ wheatish but certainly not fair/ pale and white. The media backs it up by throwing up the name of Bipasha Basu, the Bong Bombshell and who is NOT fair. Well neither were Hema Malini, Rekha, Mumtaaz, Zeenat Aman, Parveen Babi, Meenashi Sheshadri or for that matter Madhuri Dikshit or Sreedevi. Madhu Sapre was not fair and neither were other models and actresses who made it big despite their non-white complexion of course due credit must go to the make-up men who were ready with tubs of fair paint and brush.
My point is, nothing has changed. We are neither more accepting nor more inclusive and our obsession is gaining dangerous proportions as evident rising number of fairness cream advertisements and all-white faces and bodies that we see in TV. Honestly when was the last time you saw an actor/ actress in her or his natural state of body? Not in the buff you pervs!
Even Mallu John Abraham looks white and let’s not forget Priyanka Chopra whose skin colour has ‘improved’ despite her Mallu genes. No, no I don’t mean to be degrading or demeaning here or even racially abusive. I am just shaking my head at our need to change the skin-tone of our own people into that of the pucca sahibs or the Aryans both of whom left the country (or blended in) sixty and six thousand years ago respectively. My history is a bit blurred as far as time lines are concerned but the essential core of the argument remains. Why can’t we see our baby as beautiful?
Did you check the ads on TV? Everybody these days looks like they suffer from a skin pigmentation problem. It couldn’t have been more stunning in all its glory in the ‘chammak challo’ song from Ra 1. All the chorus dancers look like they have been selected only after ascertaining that they have a pigmentation problem. Why even Shahrukh Khan looks very Aryan (blue eyes and fair skin) so then why the hell not go the full monty and dye your hair blonde? Kareena is naturally fair so she is excused. But I am sure the director/ choreographer must have said “sabsey gori lagni chahiye”!
