Fair Enough

Yesterday, while haunting one of the three malls that have sprung up within a 2km radius of our home in the space of 7 months I noticed, nestling inconspicuously in the skincare aisle, a shelf full of bottles of tan lotion.

Tan lotion?!!

Get real! We are Indians. We are OBSESSED with fair skin. We are so kooky we envy albinos.

Remember the protests that took place against the advertisements of a Hindustan Lever owned fairness cream which not so implicitly portrayed light skin colour as a prerequisite for professional success, personal happiness and what else have you? Given our general public attitude it comes as no great surprise that these remonstrations hardly added up to much in the long run. On the contrary, the major fallout of the hype was free publicity for 'Fair and Lovely', which saw a zillion otherwise respectable brands jumping onto the bandwagon and the hilarious launch of a fairness cream formulated especially for male skin.

But let us reserve judgment till after we’ve looked at the moot point from the other perspective. Let’s see now… there must be some sense to it… I suppose if you are fair the general blinding brightness makes it too difficult to discern facial features anyhow. A definite pro for some. While if you have the tragic misfortune of being dark skinned like 89% of our population you obviously have to have 1:1.618 proportions, a perfect profile, rebonded hair, a cheery disposition with generous helpings of wit, sense of humour and whatnot by the side. And after all of this, if our newspapers are to be believed, guys who have no qualms blundering all over town painting red graffiti on walls with you shall ultimately look for the peaches-and-cream bleached blonde to take home to Mummy. So you see, if I sound miffed it is because I am.

Fortunately, the scenario has shown a drift towards the positive as far as the Indian movie industry is concerned. We now have the good fortune of seeing more women with dark complexions prance about around trees and sing Anu Malik songs without the customary white pancake makeup. The multiplex boom has made art movies more accessible to the general populace and frankly, they are the great leveler (due apologies to James Shirley) for everyone in art movies looks sepia regardless of their skin tone. So you see, all’s well in the land of the eternally-hung-up-on-liposuction.

But accepting the dusky dames of Bollywood for what they are hasn’t made society more easy-going in it’s appraisal of you and I. Girls most certainly get it worse than their male counterparts since the ‘Metrosexual Male Revolution’ turned out to be a passing fad. We’re back to the ‘retrosexual’ male and to weird Sunday matrimonial adverts that read “WANTED - 5’7”, fair, gorgeous, comely, alluring, glamorous girl with a figure to die for and a complexion to kill for, for this boy who is… well… just this boy really.”

Well, life goes on. I suppose the important part is to realize what we are and more importantly what we are not and find the courage to be alright with it.

Nota bene:
Though I haven’t read any Sunday matrimonial advertisements I’m sure what I’ve said about ‘em above isn’t very far from the truth. Wait, let me get today’s paper n have a look… Yup. Word for word.