The color conundrum
Somewhere in India
Dr Abhinao Kumar, BDS,
5’ 8’’ (Presently not working)
Date of Birth — March 2nd, 1990.
Birthplace — Begusarai, Bihar.
Caste — Brahmin
Want a bride who is very fair, beautiful, loyal, trustworthy, a good cook and expert in raising a child.
Somewhere else in India
“Aaah, Maa what are you doing?”
“Ela”, the mother yanked the cup of tea from her “You cannot be drinking this, you will turn dark”.
“I’m dusky Maa and what correlation does drinking tea have with one’s complexion?”
“It does,” fixing Ela’s hair “It makes your skin dark like coal”.
“Which stupid magazine did you pick this genius theory from?”
“Champa Daily and it is true my dear Ela. Everyone says so.”
“By everyone you mean relatives and match-makers who have no other business except butting their noses into everyone else’s lives”
“The boy’s family is coming to see you day after tomorrow. Please don’t step out in the sun, no drinking tea and massage your face with this turmeric-curd paste. It will make your skin as pale as milk.”
“Maa, you think we are in a cosmetic cream commercial? This is my skin — as dusky as toast not as pale as a ghost!”
“Look at this girl back-answering her own mother. Ela, why don’t you understand? Prospective grooms want pale-skinned beautiful bride only.”
“What about Education? Employment? Ambition? Family values?”
“This girl is simply impossible. What can I say to a daughter who is hell-bent on being disobedient to her own parents? Fine, do as you please. Who am I to say anything?”
I can practically visualize my readers laughing their heads off reading the absurd piece of matrimonial advertisement and also nodding furiously at the relatable exchange between Ela and her mother. How I wish I was spinning a fantasy tale to you but this is the real world, the bitter truth of every major Indian household.
A concept, an ideology and a lifestyle that has germinated, grown and has been nurtured in our own cultural backyard. Decades of social conditioning and stigmatizing have led to the unhealthy and bigoted concept of Colorism, coined by Pulitizer prize winner Alice Walker.
Colorism, as Lupita Nyong’o defines is ‘the daughter of racism’. It is like the caste system which creates structures that create an unequal footing for darker skinned people, especially women. From being called ‘racial slurs’ like ‘blacky’, using whitening creams to bleach our skin, propagating myths about tea-drinking effects and being rejected by prospective grooms for not being ‘fair-skinned’.
The Advertising Standards Council of India (2014) banned advertisements discriminating people on the basis of skin color but to no avail. From films to advertisements and fiction to reality everything is nearly whitewashed.
While we can all choose to be keyboard warriors to defend the pride and integrity of the brutal murder of George Floyd in the USA, but a tad bit of ‘desensitizing of colorism’ and some more humane-ness on our home ground too would be beneficial to reshaping the idea of feminism and color in India.
By the time this piece will be published, Ela would have rejected the douchebag and Fair and Lovely is estimated to make a whopping Rs 5000 crores worth of sales in the Indian market. Colorism has transcended capitalism, it has become a conundrum.