India has always been considered as the hub of beauty. Recently however beauty has unfortunately been correlated with skin fairness. For the last few years there has been a horrifying increase in advertisement of fairness products by various brands in all possible avatars- gel, cream, lotion, face wash and what not!
First, they talk about the sufferings of qualified yet black individuals (mostly females) while trying to get into a ‘fair, decent and glamorous job’. Some well-wisher then appears as an angel and advised them to use these fairness products. The use of these products make the dramatic change in the skin complexion and the fellow goes confidently for the interview, gets the job and also earns the jealously of her mates.
The most unfortunate part is the involvement of our superstars in advertising these brands. The common people think that these creams would definitely alleviate their sufferings and they would get their desired job and start buying and using these products. Once you invent such a product you are a billionaire.
Now you can go on fooling around people by the ‘new and improved’ version of your fairness product annually. I wonder whether these ‘improved, melanin-reducing products’ would ultimately lead to production of albinos!
Interestingly nowadays gen-Y boys are also using these products at a massive scale. In this scenario it definitely gives hope when famous film actor Kangana Ranaut turns down a huge offer to endorse fairness cream brand. Actor Nandita Das also campaigned ‘dark is beautiful’ initiative but alas, it seems to be in vain.
We Indians always shout about racism abroad but the irony is India itself is the largest market of fairness products. My sister in-law accidently happened to be black in my otherwise ‘fair’ in-law family. Her grandmother suggested her about all possible remedies: use of besan, avoiding sun etc to lighten her skin tone. She paid a deaf ear to that and she’s happy of how she is. She is just so confident and beautiful with all her Indian features and her infectious laughter.
Years ago, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore penned down one of his most beautiful song which goes like “I call her Krishnokoli – the girl whom the folks call dark”. There he describes the beauty of the dark hazel eyes of the lady, but why we should even care!
On a similar note, victims of acid attacks are usually dropped out of our society. It really gives hope to observe that there has been a trend reversal, though very rare in frequency. The acid attack survivor, Laxmi, now is a proud mom of a cute baby girl and she looks so gorgeous while walking for a fashion show. The “Queen” Kangana Ranaut also came one step forward and introduced her acid attack survivor elder sister Rangoli as the real hero on this International Women’s Day. I hope the society is changing and sometimes feel like screaming “Hey ladies, you ARE beautiful, and you DON’T need certificate from our biased society!!”
Jai Ho.
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