What is your skin colour? How much importance do you give to your own skin colour? Let me answer that question from the standing point of a Malayalee brahmin middle-class teenager that once I was. Skin colour is how I measure my beauty and how I identify myself. That much important it is for a teenager that I was. It is one of the many obnoxious parameters that this society has defined for measuring the beauty of a girl.
To say the least, I was not even a dark skinned girl. I was, what is generally called a brown skinned Indian, a south Indian and that too a Malayalee. Therein was the problem. I did not fit into the fair and shiny skinned Malayalee girl image which was the well-known description given to her. People would not believe when I would call myself a Malayalee. I looked like a Bengali, a Marathi, a Muslim, but never a Malayalee Brahmin. So I always hesitated to show off my Brahmin identity, although I was, by the superiority bestowed upon me by my caste, immensely proud of being Brahmin. I felt ashamed that I was a dark Brahmin girl.
You might be wondering why I felt ashamed. How else would you expect me to have felt when an elderly commented: "You don't look like a Brahmin." So It was a full-scale identity crisis for me. I neither looked like a Malayalee girl nor a Brahmin girl. But I was both. Hence I felt bad about myself. I once asked my mum why she had produced me brown. I believed it was unfair on her part to have produced me dark skinned and my sister a fair skinned girl. She did her best to tell me that herself and dad loved us both equally and that I was as beautiful as my sister. But my inferiority complex never allowed me to see through the haze.
It was exactly the period when India was stepping into the bliss of the fashion industry and the "Fair & lovely" advertisement was the most popular on television. It was the period when the standards of beauty that we see today was just beginning to get defined and products like "Fair & Lovely" and "Vicco ayurvedic" cream were doing their best to set these standards. It was actually the period when India opened it's gate to globalisation. I have seen young girls and women using these creams lavishly applying it on the face along with talcum powder which would look like a white paint. The cream and powder along with the sweat were the grossest sights. These creams were very popular among the young women of Tamilnadu. Tamilians are in general dark skinned and they have always been obsessed with white skinned people. They considered white skinned people to be sophisticated and beautiful and hence there was immense fan fair for such people everywhere in the state. Starting from schools to the cinema, at every level, this obsession was clearly visible. I feel this admiration for fair skin is prevalent even today. Hence it again made me feel bad. I was not fair enough to be beautiful and to be admired.
Today when I look at the young Malini, I pity myself for having felt so bad. Today I realise that skin colour is nothing but a skin colour. It has nothing to do with what I am and what I am capable of. Skin colour has nothing to do with my identity. What matters is what kind of a person I have come to be and what talents I possess. But by the time people realise this, they would have lost their whole childhood buried in the embarrassment of something that they have no control over. How pathetic it is to burden the innocent childhood with such kinds of the wrong definition of beauty and identity. In many people, the effect is so disastrous that they live with inferiority complex throughout their life. They lose their self-confidence and live a pathetic life just because they were born with dark skin. Many people like me do grow out of this phase and learn the reality of life, but many get stuck in it and live a life of self-loath. Today I love myself and I am proud of my skin colour.
I strongly feel that products and companies that propagate wrong ideas of beauty should be banned. Every company has a responsibility towards the people that it caters to. They should be held accountable for what they provide. In this consumeristic society, it is easy for such big corporates to wash their hands off such responsibilities in the name of development and money. But young girls and boys should be brought up in such a way that they respect themselves and others irrespective of their skin colour and physical appearance in general. Fair skin is not an achievement to be proud of because it comes from genes and you have no control over it. Benefits bestowed by birth can never make a person superior. We as a society should start gauging and respecting a personality not based on physical appearance or on monetary achievements but on his/her character, humanity and how they contribute to the society. Every person should be proud about their skin colour. It is what nature has given to you and you should cherish it. You should love yourself no matter how others treat you. This confidence should be given to our next generation.
To say the least, I was not even a dark skinned girl. I was, what is generally called a brown skinned Indian, a south Indian and that too a Malayalee. Therein was the problem. I did not fit into the fair and shiny skinned Malayalee girl image which was the well-known description given to her. People would not believe when I would call myself a Malayalee. I looked like a Bengali, a Marathi, a Muslim, but never a Malayalee Brahmin. So I always hesitated to show off my Brahmin identity, although I was, by the superiority bestowed upon me by my caste, immensely proud of being Brahmin. I felt ashamed that I was a dark Brahmin girl.
You might be wondering why I felt ashamed. How else would you expect me to have felt when an elderly commented: "You don't look like a Brahmin." So It was a full-scale identity crisis for me. I neither looked like a Malayalee girl nor a Brahmin girl. But I was both. Hence I felt bad about myself. I once asked my mum why she had produced me brown. I believed it was unfair on her part to have produced me dark skinned and my sister a fair skinned girl. She did her best to tell me that herself and dad loved us both equally and that I was as beautiful as my sister. But my inferiority complex never allowed me to see through the haze.
It was exactly the period when India was stepping into the bliss of the fashion industry and the "Fair & lovely" advertisement was the most popular on television. It was the period when the standards of beauty that we see today was just beginning to get defined and products like "Fair & Lovely" and "Vicco ayurvedic" cream were doing their best to set these standards. It was actually the period when India opened it's gate to globalisation. I have seen young girls and women using these creams lavishly applying it on the face along with talcum powder which would look like a white paint. The cream and powder along with the sweat were the grossest sights. These creams were very popular among the young women of Tamilnadu. Tamilians are in general dark skinned and they have always been obsessed with white skinned people. They considered white skinned people to be sophisticated and beautiful and hence there was immense fan fair for such people everywhere in the state. Starting from schools to the cinema, at every level, this obsession was clearly visible. I feel this admiration for fair skin is prevalent even today. Hence it again made me feel bad. I was not fair enough to be beautiful and to be admired.
Today when I look at the young Malini, I pity myself for having felt so bad. Today I realise that skin colour is nothing but a skin colour. It has nothing to do with what I am and what I am capable of. Skin colour has nothing to do with my identity. What matters is what kind of a person I have come to be and what talents I possess. But by the time people realise this, they would have lost their whole childhood buried in the embarrassment of something that they have no control over. How pathetic it is to burden the innocent childhood with such kinds of the wrong definition of beauty and identity. In many people, the effect is so disastrous that they live with inferiority complex throughout their life. They lose their self-confidence and live a pathetic life just because they were born with dark skin. Many people like me do grow out of this phase and learn the reality of life, but many get stuck in it and live a life of self-loath. Today I love myself and I am proud of my skin colour.
I strongly feel that products and companies that propagate wrong ideas of beauty should be banned. Every company has a responsibility towards the people that it caters to. They should be held accountable for what they provide. In this consumeristic society, it is easy for such big corporates to wash their hands off such responsibilities in the name of development and money. But young girls and boys should be brought up in such a way that they respect themselves and others irrespective of their skin colour and physical appearance in general. Fair skin is not an achievement to be proud of because it comes from genes and you have no control over it. Benefits bestowed by birth can never make a person superior. We as a society should start gauging and respecting a personality not based on physical appearance or on monetary achievements but on his/her character, humanity and how they contribute to the society. Every person should be proud about their skin colour. It is what nature has given to you and you should cherish it. You should love yourself no matter how others treat you. This confidence should be given to our next generation.
Whats evident is you are fair skinned…na?
ReplyDeleteHi Deeps, I am definitely not fair skinned. Still wondering what makes it evident? Thank you for the comment.
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