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Dark thoughts
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A bias against dark skin pervades our entire culture
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BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL Breaking the colour prejudice isn't easy for even celebrities like Naomi Campbell Photo: AFP
The celebrated god of love Krishna may be savla, the dark-complexioned one. But that does not mean we Indians don't have colour prejudices. Black is bad while white is desirable for most Indians.
The dusky Bipasha Basu is always the lustful woman in cinema, while the role of the adorable bahu is reserved for the fair-complexioned Aishwarya Rai. Nandita Das may be a great actor, but even if she wishes, she cannot become the romancing heroine. Desire and fantasy have a colour in India. The fairer the skin the better it gets. In the many commercials, businessmen in black suits are always fair. Men these days are shown to steal women's facial cream to get good complexion! Without any qualms, advertisements show dark-skinned women cringe and hide at home. In the real world, bridegrooms seek fair brides in the matrimonial columns. Anxious parents ask doctors online what to do with their daughters who are losing their complexion. Pregnant women are advised to take saffron and pomegranate so as to have fair babies. Prosperous babies and pink always go together. Dark babies, you see, are reserved for fund raising cards.
Where do such choices come from? Who decides what is beautiful and what is not? It is easy to trace them to visual images. But words are not innocent either. The English language is replete with phrases such as dark clouds, black money and dark times. Not to mention black market and black Sunday. Words give us thoughts and ideas. We think through them and with them. These words would tell the Indian and African children that black is bad.
According to traditional Sanskrit texts on samudrika lakshana, men who are fair and of good complexion will enjoy lordship. It even cautions men against having intercourse with dark complexioned women. Against this background, Dravidian literature articulates a different sentiment. Dark clouds never meant danger: it was a time for the peacocks to dance. It indicated the bounty in store. Our saints of the Bhatki tradition have sung many poems about the intoxicating beauty of the dark-skinned gods.
But come into the realm of films and the colour bias resurfaces again. Women can be slim or plump but they have to be strictly fair. Dark men and women elsewhere too have similar difficulties. African-Americans were typecast in movies and advertisements. In the U.S., they continue to endorse sports goods and things to do with "raw power". White models mostly endorse premium and lifestyle products. Cleopatra, the icon of female intelligence and beauty, had an African ancestry, but many prefer to remember her as Elizabeth Taylor!
A. SRIVATHSAN
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