More or less fascination of fair complexion ,dog our culture from calcutta to Lahore & perhaps Delhi To Cochin.As the world shrinks & not only dark & fair come close with all sorts of rascial diversity,our acceptence of narrow defenition of likeable change too.How often you might be taken aback by someone complimenting you on your “tan” complexion.You know ppl.spend good money for tanning salon to cruise & weekends in the carbean burning themselves to look like us.
What is that in indo pak culture so much focus on fair skin.I think our masters from times of Kings to the british have always been fairer than the subjects or local natives .But is this justified???
http://www.rediff.com/news/2001/apr/02usspec.htm
The Rediff US Special/ Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Best-selling novelist Divakaruni’s newest book, The Unknown Errors of
Our Lives, a collection of stories, will be published in mid-April
In the Calcutta of the fifties, when I was born, the family didn’t say,
“Not another girl. How will we ever find the money for the dowry?” Those
were enlightened times. They knew girls were important and worth loving.
They would educate me, and that would be better than any dowry.
But they did say, “Too bad she’s so dark.” Because that was what
separated Premium Quality from Econo-Pack. Fair skin.
As I grew older they said, “Rub turmeric and milk cream on your skin and
every day after school. Try not to go outside so much, and make sure you
carry a parasol. Take swimming lessons? Never! You’ll turn your skin
black as coal.” They said, “Dear, not that bright red color. That only
looks good on fair girls.”
I fumed, I wept, I said wicked things. They said, “We’re telling you
this for your own good. Otherwise no one will marry you, not even if you
have a PhD and a job in a big office.”
They were right. The matrimonial ads in the newspapers wanted only
“wheat complexioned” girls. Movie posters showed heroines with
impossibly pink cheeks. On the radio, we heard commercial after
commercial for Lakme whitening cream.
Where did this obsession come from? Was it part of a leftover colonial
mentality? Was it because historically the wives of the rich, who never
had to work in the fields, were light-skinned? Was it because fair skin
was a rarity?
By my senior year of high school, I stopped speaking up in class. I
stopped going to all girls table tennis (one of the few sports I was
allowed because it was played indoors). I started eating too much and
put on weight.
Then, Miss Bose, my social studies teacher, called me to her office. She
asked me why my grades were going down and which colleges I was applying
to. I told her I wasn’t interested in college. “What’s wrong with you?”
she said angrily. “A smart girl like you, throwing your chances away?”
I don’t know what made me tell her. Perhaps because she was dark herself
and unmarried (though she didn’t seem unhappy about that fact as she
rode up to school each day on a jaunty yellow scooter). “What’s the
use,” I remember ending.
If I’d expected sympathy from her, I didn’t get any. She stared at me
for a moment, then told me I was to write my term paper on the Miss
World Beauty Pageant.
Sadist, I thought as I stomped away.
But as I looked up articles and photos in the library, something started
happening. I saw many good-looking women – and they were all different:
sharp-featured, snub-nosed, tall and willowy, short and curvy. And
several were dark – much darker than me.
It would take me years to throw away my tubes of whitening cream to
enjoy walking bareheaded in the sun. But that afternoon in the library I
took the first step. I photocopied the picture of Miss Nigeria, whom I
thought particularly attractive, and hid it in my underwear drawer.
Whenever I felt ugly I looked at her, and she reminded me that there are
many ways of being beautiful. Instead of hankering after something
unattainable and unnatural, I needed to appreciate what I had and make
the best of it.
Before graduating, I gave Miss Bose a red scarf as a thank-you gift. I
think she got the message. She wore it at our graduation ceremony, and
when she clapped for me, she was dazzling.
barque(bijli) yoon akadti hai apne karname pe ke
jaise phir naya hum aashiyaan bana nahi sakte