Skin complexion in the Indian
context is a pretty clichéd topic. However, in spite of repeated uprising
against this complexion dogma, the situation refuses to even budge towards correction.
So strongly ingrained is our belief in the beauty of the fair skin.
I had this relative of mine, a
universal aunt in an Indian community, tell me once that a lady who was dark
complexioned was not pretty enough for me to get married to her. Well these
universal aunties who try and ‘fix’ you with ladies of their choice are the
ones who screw your life and happiness if you are naive enough to fall for
their conniving schemes. Leaving the aunt alone for some time, let us discuss
about beauty.
Beauty by definition is the
quality of being pleasing, to the eyes, ears, nose or the other senses,
depending on the perspective of the person gauging the beauty. There are also
the concepts of inner beauty and outer beauty depending on whether or not you
decide to peel a person like an onion and look into their heart, brain and
kidneys to find out whether they are good people. Well for me, beauty is like
light which enters your eyes, or the fragrance which enters your nostrils or
the feel of an item on your skin. How I view something maybe entirely different
from how you view it. What I find beautiful, you may not. In other words it is
a feeling, which differs from person to person. Then there is the evolutionary
sauce added to the whole situation. A hairstyle or a fashion trend which was
perceived as beautiful half a century ago may not sound so chic today. Else, we
would be still sporting dog collars, bell-bottoms and side-burns the size of
houses!
Coming back to the topic of
complexion on the Indian sub-continent, the fetish for fair complexion has
grown to such an extent that it is on the brink of becoming a mental disorder. What
else will make a multinational company like Unilever market its brand of beauty cream as capable
of providing fairness within 8 weeks and also come up with a fair & lovely
cream for men separately! This is just one of those thousands of products which
are there in the market for the same purpose. Recently I saw a news article
about a gentleman who filed a suit against a popular cine actor for promoting a
similar brand of soap, because he spent a considerable portion of his monthly
salary to ‘growing’ fair and didn’t grow fair even after a couple of years of
ruthless scrubbing and lathering with the soap! One also finds matrimonial
advertisements stating the bride / groom is ‘very fair’ and is looking for a
spouse who is also fair!
Sometimes it makes me wonder as
to how tall, dark and handsome lost its way in the middle of all this! I also
wonder when they will start promoting tanning creams and not tan removal creams
on the subcontinent. The unjustness of this fairness mania affects the fair
complexioned too. I am tall by Indian standards and I don’t mind cutting my
chin for the scar, but I can tell you it is one difficult job to get a tan. All
I manage to do is burn my skin every time I try. Therefore, lucky are the
people who are born dark!
As for the universal aunt who
said dark is not pretty, I actually agree with her. Dark is not pretty, it is
absolutely sexy and hot!
