Short, Dark and Ugly.

How many of you remember Master Oogway's statement that, "There are no accidents".

A few days ago, I met one of my friends while I was waiting to board my train . We haven't been in touch for a while. She was one of the main reasons and the inspiration behind my stories / writings. A deep conversation with a pure soul gives you more knowledge and insights than reading multiple books. We spoke about the various aspects of life like Friendship, Marriage, Love, Enemity, Work, Societal responsibilities etc. When talking about the social norms, we realised that we all have been taught certain things to which our minds have been wired in such a way that our responses to a few actions are rather involuntary instead of a conscious effort.

Before I go further, I might have to give a small introduction to you about her. She is a divorcee working in an MNC who is curently in love with her SINGLE READY TO MINGLE life. She is FAIR, now why should I say this? Because, I know that this is more important quality here than other things like being intelligent, Short, Differently abled  etc.

During the course of our conversation, I noticed that she was focussing on someone who was unusually fair. She was checking him out and asked me how cute he is. I was rather confused as I was trying to understand the meaning of cuteness. She kept on gazing at him and commented that she would have married him had he been a Nair. I chose to ignore that comment.

Being a typical malayali, my next question was about her remarriage to which she replied that her parents are forcing her to marry again. She might go for it if she gets an alliance from a Tall, Fair and Handsome man. Now this is the part which made me sit and think. Why Tall, Fair and Handsome instead of a Short, Dark and Handsome guy? Who set the rule that only tall and fair are handsome?

I asked her why she is so bothered about the Looks of his man, why can't she go for the character instead of the Looks. Her response was quite heart-wrenching.

"My parents want me to marry someone who is good looking. They do not want their Relatives or Friends saying that their Son-in-Law is a dark skinned man as Dark skinned people are considered to be in the lowest strata of the society.

I was dumbstruck as those words from an educated lady couldn't be digested. I looked around. There were almost 20 people around me out of which 19 of them are dark comparative to that unusually fair guy who triggered this topic.

According to her parents/her: Except that one, everyone else is Ugly. This disturbed me a lot. I know that this society has a lot of caste/ Religious/ National discrimination and along with those things, the racial discrimination runs along in everyone's veins prominently despite people are highly educated.

This also reminded me of an incident that happened a few days before. One of my friends messaged me that she was not able to find out a groom for her daughter. I asked her what her daughter's dream  about her guy was; to which I was told that her daughter has no such dreams but they (Parents) want a guy who must be a Menon, Fair, Tall and Handsome. I politely refused and told her that I can look for a good man, but if they are looking for someone that meets those criterias then they might have to look for themselves. That was the last time I spoke with her.

In another incident, one of my relatives were looking for a girl for her son and I asked him about his idea about his wife. His response was that he needed a fair girl as all his cousins' wives were Fair and so he need not want his wife to feel bad. That was a very weird logic, but considering our societal thinking I would only pity on him because at the end of the day he is also a social animal and wants to fit into the society.

Unfortunately, this is what our society is.We are taught or we follow a culture of considering Fair skinned people to be the epitome of beauty. A couple of centuries ago, we had a society which was divided based on the colour and creed and unfortunately, we are still carrying that ghost with us. Knowingly or Unknowingly we are teaching our younger generation the same lessons which were considered to be wrong a century ago.

Now, when I think about this, promoting fairness is one of the most important businesses in this world. Why are we doing this? Who made these rules?

Our obsession with fair skin can be traced back to British rule when supremacy, or rule, could be assumed on the basis of skin colour. From that point on, the idea that fairness meant higher worth prevailed and it continued into Bollywood (India's film industry) influence. There is intense pressure from the society too, as for women to look fair means less dowry during marriage. Basically it's ingrained in all of us Indians, this fairness thing, and so it kind of markets itself. Most Asian cultures have a fascination with ‘white or fairer’ skin as most of their royalty or colonial powers had skin colour whiter than the common people.

We will have to change this. If you are someone who identifies someone based on their skin color or creed, then you don't know how wrong you are. Even for fun, when you mock at a dark skinned guy, you don't know how much he gets affected and hurt. You don't know how much you are contributing to those age old apartheid system. You are teaching your future generation the lesson which our forefathers tried to eradicate.

I walked away when my train arrived. I bade adieu to her with so many questions popping up inside my head. I apologize to my younger generation for they are been taught something wrong. I hope that at least they will develop that common sense that we all are humans and will look at each one as humans irrespective of their skin complexion or condition.