Mirror Mirror on the Wall…

You have to be hidden under a rock to live in India and not notice what an obsession people have with being ‘fair.’ It’s a genetic fixation that we have no option of doing away with. It’s been drilled into our heads for as long as I can remember “stay away from the sun” or “you’ll become kali if you’re out in the sun too long.” From dolls that are as white as porcelain, to brides who invest their annual salary in a blinding skin lightening therapy, we’re all victims of the ‘fair’ play!

If you have been born and raised in India like I have then the definition of ‘fair’ can vary to a great degree from north to the south. Before Aishwarya Rai’s Miss World happened, the South Indians were perceived as being dark, oily haired, rice eating, round bodied, non-hindi speaking individuals whose ultimate motive in life was to become a software employee. If you’re a proper bred South Indian with a last name that most people would cringe to pronounce, then you’re already expected to have a big vermilion bindi, long braided hair (horror of horrors if you have jasmine flowers in your hair, almost tempting the herd of sheep to run for those flowers), wearing a shirt that screams ‘tacky’ to go with a pair of stone washed faded jeans, knotted eyes brows, sporting a puzzled look saying ‘kyku’ for ‘kyun.’ Well fortunately, times are changing (or so I like to think) and ‘soudhindians’ are able to break that stereotype. 

If your parents are average colored and you’re not looking too bright (pun intended) then you know for a fact that being light skinned has its advantages in our society that is forever starved for white people. My father can be categorized as light skinned. Mum is ‘wheatish,’ another favorite word that should mean ‘not fair’ but means ‘one shade darker than fair.’ So you should have a fairly decent idea as to how my sister and I look, genetically. We are often presumed to be North Indians and far from telugus. If you work in any IT sector, you'll know why I said that. Thanks to India’s geographic location that places us between the tropics, we have very less say in the naturally dusky skin color that varies in a given year, which brings me to re-defining the seasons we have in Hyderabad. It starts in January with ‘mild-summer,’ then it gets hotter with ‘scorching-summer,’ May ushers in the worst ‘clay roasted oven- summer’ and some rain in July-August; just enough to let the potholes overflow and drown a few thousands followed by some more ‘mild summer’ at the end of the year. With the mercury rising; thanks to global warming and a high percentage of people driving two-wheelers filling the atmosphere with a creamy layer of pollution, we can only expect to be toasted mercilessly and therefore be eternally stuck with a tan that can make a country cow proud.

I have personally experienced the benefits of being fair first hand and in our ongoing struggle to ape our favorite celebrity we miss out on the essence of a person. Take the latest episode in which L'Oreal was under the scanner for allegedly using photoshop on a commercial that Beyonce shot for. Apparently, her skin was made to look so light, that she didn't look African American anymore. In India, a vast number of people try hard to fall into the highly misused and misunderstood ‘wheatish color.’ They’re the ‘not so dark-yet not so fair,’ people who are highly optimistic about their skin color thanks to endless promises made by skin products. They are also the ones with a high propensity for a tan that they’ll do anything to get rid of. Matrimonial sites will feature an extra checkbox for this color and boy, are we misled. Finally, the fair skinned. These people are naturally light skinned and or the fortunate few who can afford door-door a/c wherever they go. The rich and the affluent have the luxury of an invisible bubble that protects them from everything under the sun. These are also the ones who naturally have unblemished crystal clear skin that can make anyone go green with envy.

Ever notice how the market is flooded with fancy Bollywood (and even Hollywood) artists who swear by their skin products. Fair and Lovely has been around for decades now, so long that in fact that it should have left everyone fair and flawless by now. It also intrigues me to no extent that in such advertisements, they show that the usage of all these products changes the rest of their skin color too, of course to match their face and then go on to conquer the world, all with one Fair n Lovely. Ain’t life grand! But then that’s just one product. Let’s take Olay, Lakme, Ponds, Fairever, Nivea -who by the way is making its mark for men’s skin lightening products that a lot of heterosexual guys have in their closet. So I guess we won’t be running into any more tall, ‘dark’ and handsome guys anymore.

While the whole Western Hemisphere resorts to tanning beds and 100^º beaches like rotisserie, we waste just as much in time and energy in getting rid of what they yearn for, a nice tanned body. Which brings me to the underlying truth: Indians are fascinated by ‘imported’ stuff. Be it models or products. The ‘imported’ tag fetches so much more than the eyes can see. Even my local Chiropractor has a picture of a little white girl doing the hoola hoops. Ditto with the dentists, local fashion brands, car advertisements and who can forget our background dancers in the Bollywood movies. I’m just as guilty as the girl next door. If and when I do get a farmers tan, I stare in the mirror so long and so hard wishing I could wipe it away. However, my everyday products are limited to practically a bare minimum and nothing else. At the risk of sounding narcissistic I would like to point out that the harder you try to look good the harder it becomes to look good. So many products and treatments can surely burn a hole in your pocket and leave you wanting more, but that is all it will do, leave you wanting for more. It is imperative that you get comfortable with your body; after all it is the only thing that we can so purely control and manage.

So whether you are fair or dark, wheatish or dusky…tall or short and a whole different array of shapes remember a sign of a healthy mind is a healthy body and vice versa. We cannot change ourselves 100% to suit the model in Vogue, but what we can do is be in charge of our happiness and how others view and treat us.