My Fair Lady

On a delightful evening I was sitting with a bunch of people in whose company you could do things as futile as noticing what a TV advertisement has to say. It was then that I realized that I was practically supposed to be an outcast. Reason, I don’t have a skin color that can double up as an emergency light.

Well, I will agree that the bias for fair skin is something that does very often try to lay its hands on my throat. It hasn’t really bothered me much, but yes, honestly it can get on your nerves sometimes. And if you share the shade of my skin but not my indifference, you could be in trouble.


Not surprisingly, some of the most desirable young women in the industry are dusky. I will not take up the gargantuan task of listing their names but yes I would certainly like to appreciate these women, their confidence and their good sense in not wasting time and money on being fair and whatever. Today they are where they are and it speaks loud enough for itself. In fact what does surprise me is the matrimonial. Almost EVERY man is a “good looking boy “with a “handsome salary” and wants “fair”, “slim” and “beautiful” girl. In that case, the mirror cracking material that I am, my chances of getting married are ‘fairly’ ‘slim’. Not that it is matter of concern. But for a lot of women who are melanin rich, life can be hard. 

It does not take a genius to realize that the color of one’s skin or the highness of one’s cheekbone is not one’s sin or virtue. It is not something that one can be blamed of credited for. Beauty is a such a miraculously relative and subjective term that in the world we live, Aishwarya Rai is considered stunning and so is Naomi Campbell.

Frankly I never found my complexion to be a hindrance in my way, and I am sure that no woman does until she faces those well meaning souls that judge her by set standards of beauty that God knows who sets. Who in order to make her life better burry her in a grave of besan, uptan, and the umpteen number of  white and pink tubes. What finally comes out is a woman who will never be confident to walk out in the sun no matter how enchanting her eyes, or how mesmerizing her smile.  And no matter how loved or appreciated she is for the person that is her, that cream will continue to haunt her, as would its manufacturers.

We are a set of people who have fought racial discrimination since a long time. Even now we complain about it when we venture out in The White Man’s Land. But even that guy who has been beaten up by a bunch of white men when studying abroad wants a fair and lovely white, sorry, I meant wife. Does that not demean our entire set of upright principles we keep boasting about?

It is beautiful to be fair, but it is as beautiful to be dark, and what really needs to be beautiful is the person that we are in our hearts. Today you hate the fair Bin Laden (Justin Beiber for a few of us), as much as you love the dark A.R. Rehman /Nelson Mandela/ Desmond Tutu /Nat King Cole / Stevie Wonder....
 I take an example with men, because now they haven’t been spared either. (refer to the hideous "HI HANDSOME" PEHELWAN WITH NAIL POLISH,  AND LIPISHTIK ADD )

As for the fairness cream people, guys you really need to go through a reality check.  Seriously, your towering claims that a girl has the right to live only when she is vampire white are stuff of stand up comedy. You need to work harder with your creative team. And for fairness’ sake, grow up.

As for me, I am pretty comfortable to be me. My mother thinks I am pretty and so do my best friends. My mirror really does not crack at my sight and my dog loves me like hell. Other than that, nothing else seems to bother much. And it shouldn’t bother you too. You are beautiful the way you are and it’s in your own skin that you will grow best. For in all honesty, you really are a woman/man phenomenally.