If there is something called flogging a dead horse, it is this post: I am going to talk about our obsession with 'Fair and lovely'.
Relax, I am not about to write an essay on how 'Black is beautiful'. In fact, my problem is exactly that. There is a saying in Tamil - 'Karuppey azhagu; kaandhaley rusi', which when lossely translated means - 'Only black is beautiful and only roasted to the point of burnt is delicious'. It sounds like something that was made up by a cook after accidentally burning up that day's breakfast. This over stressing results in the exactly opposite opinion. We might even agree on the 'roasted is delicious' part of it, but the other part is extremely contrived.
Beauty has a very fluidic meaning. It changes with individual, region, country and race. But, there is a generic notion of beauty that we all usually agree on. For example, you might or might not think Jothika is beautiful, but would agree that she has beautiful eyes; you might prefer Tamannah over Sneha, but would agree that Sneha has a beautiful smile. I am taking a fair skinned woman and a compartively dark skinned woman as examples to emphasize that the discussed aspect of their beauty is not going to change with their complexion.
We always say: "She is not that beautiful but, really fair" and "She is dark, but beauiful". Our definition of beauty always seems to be fair first and dark next, so the emphasis is always on the complexion of a fair woman and her beauty is only second to it but with a dark skinned woman her beauty is always despite it. This, this is precisely what irritates and annoys me. A woman can be fair or dark, but beauty is an overall thing. It is extremely perplexing to me that people find it a surprise when we see beautiful dark skinned people and not so beautiful fair skinned people.
My major contention: to be called fair is a compliment and to be called dark is a criticism. It is considered extremely rude to say someone has tanned, well what then do you want to call it? I remember how a friend of mine (she falls in the Jothika shade in general) after a much deserved vacation to Goa came back looking all tanned and happy . Almost everyone she met began or ended the conversation with tips to regain her white, white complexion. She almost placed herself under house arrest to regain her complexion. Why all this stress? Fair or dark, she is a beautiful girl. It didn't make a difference. Well, maybe that is just me!
My baby, when he was around two or three months old, started to get darker and more dark. My grandmother had told me that all kids undergo a period where their blood count increases and this happens and 'not to worry'. I actually realized it only in the pictures I took. At that point of time in my life, he was the only thing I was looking at 24X7, how on earth would I know the difference? And every single person who came to visit me then invariably gave me million tips to get my baby fairer. It annoyed me to no end. If I explained the phenomenon, they concluded that I was being defensive and consoled me saying ofcourse, in that tone which tells you they didn't believe a word. If I went ahead and proclaimed he looks exactly like his father (which he does), it would comically end in two scenarios: if they know my husband personally or are related to him, they would lower the voice and protest that my husband is not that dark; if they were related to me and have never seen him before, they would immediately nod their head with wisdom, "Oh, of course" - it is not my mistake you see, my husband's. And ofcourse, when they saw my baby months later when we went back to India, "acho, evlo color aayitaan" (you know, phoren return, gotten fair, blah blah blah) was the usual comment. Oh yes, I forgot, I was included in this "You have gotten so fair!" compliment too. And after the first two times I stopped saying, "It has been ages since I have seen sun, it is winter there you see. This is just lack of sunshine." Yes, I understand that we all went shades paler than we were and one has a right to comment on it. But, the 'now you look more beautiful/handsome' undertone behind it is incogruous.
Beauty is beauty, there is no 'despite being' in it. And mediocre looks are mediocre looks, there is no 'but' after it.
Yes, the next time someone tells me, 'looks are not everything, there is intelligence...there is good heart', be warned, I will make you watch Anjaan movie a million times as punishment! This post is not to say beauty is of the utmost importance. This post is about my annoyance over the world's perplexing view that fair skinned people are beautiful by default and dark skinned people are sometimes beautiful inspite of it.
P.S's:
Relax, I am not about to write an essay on how 'Black is beautiful'. In fact, my problem is exactly that. There is a saying in Tamil - 'Karuppey azhagu; kaandhaley rusi', which when lossely translated means - 'Only black is beautiful and only roasted to the point of burnt is delicious'. It sounds like something that was made up by a cook after accidentally burning up that day's breakfast. This over stressing results in the exactly opposite opinion. We might even agree on the 'roasted is delicious' part of it, but the other part is extremely contrived.
Beauty has a very fluidic meaning. It changes with individual, region, country and race. But, there is a generic notion of beauty that we all usually agree on. For example, you might or might not think Jothika is beautiful, but would agree that she has beautiful eyes; you might prefer Tamannah over Sneha, but would agree that Sneha has a beautiful smile. I am taking a fair skinned woman and a compartively dark skinned woman as examples to emphasize that the discussed aspect of their beauty is not going to change with their complexion.
We always say: "She is not that beautiful but, really fair" and "She is dark, but beauiful". Our definition of beauty always seems to be fair first and dark next, so the emphasis is always on the complexion of a fair woman and her beauty is only second to it but with a dark skinned woman her beauty is always despite it. This, this is precisely what irritates and annoys me. A woman can be fair or dark, but beauty is an overall thing. It is extremely perplexing to me that people find it a surprise when we see beautiful dark skinned people and not so beautiful fair skinned people.
My major contention: to be called fair is a compliment and to be called dark is a criticism. It is considered extremely rude to say someone has tanned, well what then do you want to call it? I remember how a friend of mine (she falls in the Jothika shade in general) after a much deserved vacation to Goa came back looking all tanned and happy . Almost everyone she met began or ended the conversation with tips to regain her white, white complexion. She almost placed herself under house arrest to regain her complexion. Why all this stress? Fair or dark, she is a beautiful girl. It didn't make a difference. Well, maybe that is just me!
My baby, when he was around two or three months old, started to get darker and more dark. My grandmother had told me that all kids undergo a period where their blood count increases and this happens and 'not to worry'. I actually realized it only in the pictures I took. At that point of time in my life, he was the only thing I was looking at 24X7, how on earth would I know the difference? And every single person who came to visit me then invariably gave me million tips to get my baby fairer. It annoyed me to no end. If I explained the phenomenon, they concluded that I was being defensive and consoled me saying ofcourse, in that tone which tells you they didn't believe a word. If I went ahead and proclaimed he looks exactly like his father (which he does), it would comically end in two scenarios: if they know my husband personally or are related to him, they would lower the voice and protest that my husband is not that dark; if they were related to me and have never seen him before, they would immediately nod their head with wisdom, "Oh, of course" - it is not my mistake you see, my husband's. And ofcourse, when they saw my baby months later when we went back to India, "acho, evlo color aayitaan" (you know, phoren return, gotten fair, blah blah blah) was the usual comment. Oh yes, I forgot, I was included in this "You have gotten so fair!" compliment too. And after the first two times I stopped saying, "It has been ages since I have seen sun, it is winter there you see. This is just lack of sunshine." Yes, I understand that we all went shades paler than we were and one has a right to comment on it. But, the 'now you look more beautiful/handsome' undertone behind it is incogruous.
Beauty is beauty, there is no 'despite being' in it. And mediocre looks are mediocre looks, there is no 'but' after it.
Yes, the next time someone tells me, 'looks are not everything, there is intelligence...there is good heart', be warned, I will make you watch Anjaan movie a million times as punishment! This post is not to say beauty is of the utmost importance. This post is about my annoyance over the world's perplexing view that fair skinned people are beautiful by default and dark skinned people are sometimes beautiful inspite of it.
P.S's:
- If you don't recognize the names Jothika and Sneha - (a) you are underage and reading my blog, are you sure your parents will be okay with that? (b) new or not seen many Tamil movies, eh? They are slightly retired Tamil actresses, please Google them, thank you!
- If you feel outraged that I have used 'she', 'woman' a lot, forgive me. In my limited, narrow experience, I have only seen women suffer more from this issue than men.
- I fall under the wheatish complexion category, which makes me the mid-scale range. I can talk about both sides, you cannot question me with 'How would you know's. I have been told "oh my, you are fair" and also "you know, something like your color" (in that derogatory tone which indicates that I lean towards the darker side of the color scale in the said person's estimate, which is bad, really, really bad!)
- Anjaan - you don't know about this movie? You really must Google Anjaan memes. Trust me!
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