The Eternal Darkness (even) of the Spotless Mind

I just read a post by someone who has a fair complexion, fuming at colour-discrimination in our own country. It is a topic close to my heart which is neither dark . I have heard so many people rant about it that I always stayed away from adding to the debate. What could I say that lots of women have already not said before me?

Today, the anger stems from seeing Dilnavaz talk of a six-year old who has been taught, by her mother, that she is black and must rub besan to improve her complexion. This girl wil soon be a shy, insecure teenager, convinced that her complexion is the reason she can never be attractive. She will one day be a mother who will try to ensure a fair daughter, via genes or via besan, so that her child need not have the same handicap that she grew up with. And so the vicious circle will continue, a loop, a ring, a noose around all our necks.

At the age of 8, I came home from school one summer afternoon, my uniform and smiling teeth dazzlingly white in contrast to my genetically dark plus sun-baked, spent-the-day-in-the-field face. A relative was visiting and he was rather taken aback when he opened the door. When he saw me as a teenager, he admitted that I was quite attractive despite my dark skin, reminiscing how when he saw me that day long back, he'd wondered how on earth I would ever get married! It's a funny story, amusingly told by him, but deeper issues lie beneath.

I was always a dark child. Joining a new school mid-term in class 2, I was taunted by the boys: kaali-kaluti. Friendless and shy, it did not help me to be judged on the basis of my complexion. Luckily no one whose opinion I valued as I grew up cared about my colour, and I exulted in outdoor sports, not caring one bit about the sun beating down on me and destroying my prospects of a good marriage!

A recent ad on TV shows how women are now the ones who visit the boy's home to see him, to watch him exhibit his talent at singing/dancing, etc., and make the decision whether or not to marry him. Why the empowerment? Because these girls have become beautiful thanks to XYZ fairness cream, of course! So at the same time that it tries to subvert stereotypes, it also reinforces other harmful ones.

I condemn all women who endorse fairness creams. Stop capitalising on a national weakness. Women of African origin can choose a line of beauty products called Dark and Lovely. When can we in India do the same?

There are much bigger problems on the insides of human beings in today's world to continue to worry about what's going on outside. Children need to be taught to look deeper than skin for beauty or the lack of it. That is when we will learn to find true role models who will inspire us to be good, to be compassionate, to be fair, darkness and fairness be damned.