India's Unfair Obsession

Psychology might seem to be a boring subject to most of us. However, one might find it interesting, if one decides to delve deeper into the amusing complexities of the mind of a typical Indian. Somehow, one can guarantee that a typical Indian mind would come second after a female mind, at being ludicrously complex. One such flummoxing complexity of a typical Indian mindset is it’s obsession with fairness. It is appalling to see the hypocricy of the people who hailed Barack Obama’s election as the US president, as historic, have a strong fetish for white skin; or to put it in more indigenous words the ‘gora rang’. Strange that the mindset which prefers it’s room’s walls painted in different hues rather than a simple whitewash, goes crazy after any white skinned wannabe coming to India for petty roles in Bollywood films or even a porn star residing in a house filled with bunch of uncivilized and badly brought up adults.

From matrimonial classifieds to television content, Indians’ contorted mentality’s love for fairness speaks for itself. It’s quite explicable that any Indian family would want a smart, educated, homely bride for their son, but what is flabbergasting is the presence of the ‘fairness’ clause right at the beginning of the matrimonial ad. It would probably end up being an infinite inconclusive thesis for research- how does fairness of a girl comes to the use of her in-laws. Given how sanctimonious we Indians become when it comes to marriages, who knows if fairness is just another measure to judge a girl’s chastity.

The other prominent aspect of showing the ‘fairly’ naive mindsets of the fairness lovers are these fairness creams and their advertisements. All right, when Rin or Tide commercials talk about giving your clothes a snow white look, it is still digestible. But when there are commercials of toilet soaps claiming to give you a fair skin, it is not amusing, it is but rather bizarre. Anyone in his or her right mind would know that soaps do the work of washing away all the dirt from the body. The more hilarious thing is that now even some face wash gels are coming up with the same kind of claims. Wonder what theory of complexion these ad makers studied in junior classes. That the melanins, the pigments which give colour to the skin are stuck superficially and can be washed away?   So it seems that these face wash and soaps basically compete for the position of the best anti adhesive against the wretched melanin. Such bizarre claims change from hilarious to wrath evoking when they link fairness gained by their creams to self confidence and personality development.  Strange how these ad makers never feel embarrassed at their stupid attempt to prove wrong  and belittle the writers of the various self help books wrong, by claiming that the fairness gained by their creams increases the self confidence or morale of the person.

Anyway, it is shameful for a sensible Indian to see how so many Indians get fooled by the ludicrous claims.  We also have some anti wrinkle creams that allure you by giving this added benefit of fairness. As if the ‘Botox in a box’ claim was less exaggerated, eh?

Girls wooed, the next target are the dandy dudes. Tall, dark and handsome is a passe’, anyway. How ironical that the ageing superstar who dies his greying hair black, advices men to use fairness cream, so that the neighbourhood girls can croon ‘hi handsome, hi handsome’. And we also have a cricketer who positions his fairness cream as an off the field performance enhancer, giving viewers a clear confusion if he is actually campaigning for fairness creams or some new Emraan Hashmi brand of aphrodisiacs.

Even after experiencing the zero truthfulness of these various mix of bleach which often harms the skin; Indians love to shell out money on them more willingly them on seasonal fruits.

This kind of naiveté is nothing but deeply saddening. On one hand we advocate the supremacy of the inner composition of a person over their outer composition, and on the other hand fairness becomes the only thing that matters to us, disregarding the aesthetics and ethics of a person. It is so weird that people often mention that a person is not fair or has ‘sanwala rang’ while admiring the beauty of a dark complexioned person. Is being fair a precursor to being beautiful? Certainly , a thoughtful person would not hesitate to call a person with a preference or likeness for fairness, as shallow. The issue, however small creates a socio-psychological divide in our primarily conservative society, where we are still struggling to equalise the gender ratio. To become a pragmatic nation with a modern outlook towards economical and infrastructural growth, Indians shall have to leave such petty fervours like fairness, behind. And as they say, one should never leave hope; I too hope that I’ll soon see the change coming,  with the appearance of the counterpart of ‘no-caste bar’ section of the matrimonial, in the form of ‘no colour bar’.