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Spice of Life : Dusky is not dusty, treat black as white
It’s time we shun the idea ruling our cognitive minds at subliminal levels that the outer complexion of a person is more valuable, and rather divert our attention into judging the inner and real beauty of someone’s heart that is devoid of any colour bias, writes UN Upadhaya
If we had the privilege of choosing our skin tone, most of us may have merrily cherry-picked light over dark for reasons too obvious to spell out. The dark shade appeals to fashionistas when it comes to opting for outfits and sunglasses, unfortunately, not the skin tone.
Even cosmetic products vouch for a “whiter-than-white complexion”. No prizes for guessing why there has never been a beauty product offering its user a “darker-than-dark” complexion for there would be no buyer.
Thumbing through the matrimonial pages of a newspaper reflects the same complexion of thoughts. Even today, the advertisements seek a suitable match for a winsome bride or a handsome groom with a “fair” skin. Some research on Google to ferret out the roots about Indians’ longstanding obsession with “light and lovely” skin attributed the result to a mix of colonialism and patriarchy at composite levels.
The effects of centuries of British suppression can’t be erased so easily. There is a deeply entrenched penchant for fair skin since our subjugated forefathers deemed their condescending white rulers superior in all facets of life.
In sweeping vagaries of time, however, we either forgot or overlooked our principal deities be it Lord Krishna or Lord Rama in the epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. They were depicted as dark-skinned human incarnations yet all-attractive, earning the adorable sobriquets of Sanvla, Sundar and Salona.
Would dark ever be unattractive for a child having a mother with the same skin tone? No, never. It’s always pained my heart when I heard from my mother how she’d been subjected to both covert and overt bullying in the prejudiced discrimination against her dark skin after she got married. Narrow-minded bigotry profoundly rooted in those times trailed her to her pregnancy when her peers would exhort her to observe odd superstitions so that her child’s skin should match the fair father’s and not hers.
A casual chat over this topic with my history teacher spurred her into sharing an anecdote of how her growing-up years were spent in underlying inferiority of being a dark-complexioned teenager that had even made her parents worry about her nuptials. Thankfully, her husband, in the light of his sagacious erudition, ticked her inner skill first over innate skin in preference order.
One wonders what life-changing constructive lessons we’ve drawn from history as it was the same slavery of thoughts that led to the slavery of dark-skinned people stiflingly chained in the servitude of white-skinned despots for ages. It took a crusader like Nelson Mandela to pierce through the shackles of apartheid, bending the world to regard black and white as just two extremes in the spectrum of colours.
It’s high time we shun the idea ruling our cognitive minds at subliminal levels that the outer complexion of a person is more valuable, and rather divert our attention into judging the inner and real beauty of someone’s heart that is devoid of any colour bias, quite fortunately. unsharma3116@gmail.com
The writer is a freelance contributor based in Una.
