A Strange Obsession
Divya DN
12 October 2008, 11:59ACCEPT IT OR NOT, we Indians are obsessed with the colour “White”. Ask any person as to what they prefer- Black or White????? Pat comes the reply—White. In India the mantra goes- “If you are White then you are right.” Let’s go back to the pre-independence era. Historical evidence has testimony to certain Indians being loyal to their “Gore Sahibs and Memsahibs” even if it means betraying their own kith and kin.
India in 2008 doesn’t paint a rosy picture. Being students of literature in the University, we were prescribed texts which dealt with race, colour and so on. One of our professors reminisces about how students from Africa came down to University for student exchange programme. Not only were they ridiculed and marginalized but they faced abysmal conditions wherein people spat on them with the result that they stopped coming to India. Their race was not a setback but their colour was!! Let’s take a look at how this whiteness or fairness phenomena affects various aspects of our life.
To begin with the matrimonial advertisements:
Wanted Bride: FAIR, VERY FAIR, VERY BEAUTIFUL……
This stereotypical notion continues. Even if the people seeking such a proposal maybe as good as tar, the would-be-bride ought to have a fair skin. What to do?? We ARE like this.
A relative of mine had a love marriage and married out-of-caste. If that wasn’t sacrilegious enough, what added fuel to the fire was the fact that she had a DARK skin.
Ouch….. It hurts!!! Even after seven years of her son’s marriage my aunt still begrudges her daughter-in law’s not-so-good-looks. [Her son being dark can be easily overlooked.].
Need another example????Fair & Lovely conveys that it is looks and appearances and a woman’s sexuality that can land her a job; and is discriminatory on the basis of the colour of the skin by equating beauty with fairness. All beauty products like creams, shampoos lotions and soap highlight woman as fair and beautiful. Earlier men were exempted from this fairness phenomena. With Emami’s Fair & Handsome men aren’t lagging behind. We have comfortably replaced the Victorian Byronic Romantic Hero of TALL DARK HANDSOME with TALL, FAIR HANDSOME .
Shakespeare wrote: My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red…
Shakespeare’s sonnets subvert and reverse the conventions of the Petrarchan love sequence: the idealizing love poems, for instance, are written not to a perfect woman but to an admittedly dark lady. But we steadfastly believe in “Chaudavi ka Chand ho…”
[This is a famous love song, which idealizes the beloved’s beauty to a moon.]
Our movies don’t prove contradictory at all. Whether it is Lagaan, Rang De Basanti or Salaam –E- Ishq, all the movies have our “desi heroes” romancing the “gori mem.” All of these movies have a white western woman as opposed to a Chinese or Afro-Caribbean woman. It might therefore be argued that the Hindi film industry is Eurocentric in outlook.
There is a need for us to re-define ourselves in order to lead more meaningful lives. We need to look beyond the surface. All that is fair is not beautiful and all that is beautiful is not fair. We need to bring to an end to our obsession. After all, “All that glitters is not gold.”
