Fair and Lovely?
"Chachi, you are so lucky ya. I must say you really married a handsome hunk." chirped Sonia. "Your boys are so cute and fair and handsome, just like Chacha."
Meenal had heard this so many times before. In the fifteen years of her marriage, she had heard similar statements from friends, family and mere acquaintances a thousand times.
Actually no. Meenal had heard this from the very day she was born. In the hospital, right after her birth, Meenal's grandmother had wailed, "another girl and to make matters worse, she's so dark." All through her childhood and teens, Meenal had heard these words multiple times. But there was no sarcasm or intent to humiliate in them. Just a sadness. She had never understood why.
Meenal thought she looked good everytime she looked in the mirror. She was the average Indian colour with fairly decent features.
After marriage though, these comments about her skin colour escalated to another level. Meenal's husband was a fair and good looking guy. So, his family obviously thought that he had settled for a far inferior partner lookswise. From the first day of marriage till now, she had heard umpteen amount of remarks and comments regarding this. Some came as jokes, while others with a clear intent to demean or humiliate.
But Sonia had been only 12 when she first said this. And Geeta, her younger sister who said this more often than Sonia had been only 10. These girls had been so young when they had defined beauty in certain terms. How had they based their opinions of beauty on the basis of skin colour? Meenal kept thinking about this as she loved the girls dearly as did they.
But the truth was staring Meenal in the face. Every fairytale, every textbook depicts a beautiful princess as fair and the ugly, wicked witch as dark. Even the opposites puzzle Meenal bought for her kids illustrates beautiful verses ugly as fair verses dark. Every other advertisement on television is about a fairness cream portraying a dark unhappy girl transform into a happy and confident person once she is fair. These images, teachings compounded with the influences of parent's views, grandparent's comments, teacher's compliments unknowingly forms these biases in every child's mind. These notions become so ingrained, that we tend to view the entire world through our tinted vision. So Europeans and Americans are beautiful while Africans and Asians are not. We never think about these preconceived notions.
Sonia is now 18. Will she continue thinking like this forever? Or will she break the bondages of upbringing and teaching and open her eyes to see the world for herself? Will she be able to free herself off the shackles of societal norms and schooling and start seeing the world with a fresh pair of eyes?
The more important question is, will we ever be able to see the world with our own eyes? Will we ever be able to shed the biases of colour, caste, creed, country from our vision and see things anew?
Well said Aditi, hope we can inculcate the essence of real beauty in our children.
ReplyDeleteI sure hope we can. But it will require a lot of effort on our part.
DeleteSo true...surely fairness is not the definition for beauty ...The story certainly brings in a different perspective...
ReplyDeleteAny change in attitudes will depend on a monumental shift in social mores globally and bot just locally. As long as literature depicts white as good and black as evil there can be no hope for change. After all anything bad is in a black list or blackbook while truth is a white paper. Purity is snowwhite while the raven is evil. Prince charming rides a white steed while the black cat is the witch's pet. We are all culturally attuned to depicting white as good and black as bad. How then can we dream of attitudes changing? These perceptions are drilled into our heads from childhood thru our literature and bedside tales. Can it then change anytime soon? I have my doubts
ReplyDeleteI agree that change will not be easy and soon. But is that not what we all need to strive for? To change ourselves, to inculcate the right values into our kids and not let these biases enter their minds? This is the story of every Meenal, all around the world and we all must do our bit to change the perception and obsession of society with the fair skin.
DeleteVery true! And this concept has become so ingrained in our perceptions of beauty. If you are not very fair, you grow up believing you are not beautiful and it is such a big blow to your confidence. And even if you get past it, you still tend to think negatively about the ones darker than you. Even I sometimes find myself struggling with both the issues and have to consciously correct myself. I hope we are able to get past it and teach our kids to think more openly!
ReplyDelete