Are You Fair Enough?

I am talking about skin colour here. If you are even one shade less than a white-washed tone, you better start using the fairness products else god forbid you may lose the job interview, remain a spinster all your life, suffer nasty remarks from the road side pani-puri Walla and such other dreadful consequences.

Seriously, what are the Ad companies thinking when they show ads where a person using a fairness cream has an interview panel groveling before him to accept the job or a lady who is already ready to give the sun tough competition is depressed about her skin not glowing enough? A fair-skin can get you your dream job, win beauty pageants, the man of your dreams, and in short have the heavens and lady luck licking your feet. Never mind education and knowledge. That is for the less fortunate ones. The colour of the skin rather than person’s inherent qualities like confidence, talent or even education determines his or her destiny. I am surprised that no one has thought of suing these in-your-face-liars.

However there is a far more serious issue here. And I am not even talking about the validity of their claims when they insist they a person with a dusky-complexion can become a white-skinned foreigner within a week or even life-time use of their products. The inherent desire of the Indian or Asian skin-coloured that desperately wants to become fairer at whatever cost is the underlying factor that is being exploited to deaths by advertising firms. In the wake of this reality, can we really blame them? Fairness of the skin is associated with beauty, intelligence, competence and all the goodness that heavens have to bestow. We may have made inroads into science and technology, have the best international schools, colleges and B-schools churn out bright alumni year after year, yet we are unable to wipe out this deep-rooted regressive belief and instil pragmatic thinking and self-confidence that is not dependant of racial background.

A dusky girl is considered far more unlucky than her male counterpart for the obvious concern about who will marry this poor dark girl? Although the evolution of metro-sexual male has given rise to fairness cream for men, men by and large get away from being typecast in skin-colour moulds. After men need to be tall, dark and handsome but women need to be tall, fair, slim, beautiful and what-not. Women-centric serials start with the concept of having dusky protagonists defying the trend but a few episodes down the line they strangely turn a few shades fairer. Hot model Bipasha though known as the dusky siren is ironically never portrayed on-screen in her true skin-tone.

While we Asians spend our time trying to lighten our genetics, our western counterparts spend hours in sunlight to get a darker skin tone. Talk about the grass being greener on the other side! Here’s a satirical anecdote I read recently in the magazine section of a leading newspaper. I do not remember the name of the author, unfortunately. An Indian mother prays to God about getting a fair bride for her son. God more than answers her prayer when her son comes home with a foreigner much to her dismay. Maybe she did not want such a “fair” bride after all. About time to start wishing for more meaningful things in life.

Read More

Reminiscing the good old days of Doordarshan…

Ads and serials have become a part and parcel of our lives ever since the idiot box attained a permanent membership in our houses. The advent of satellite T.V. made sure the theory of evolution applied to the serials and commercials, throwing the Doordarshan era into an endangered (or almost extinct for most of us) zone . I am from the generation that evolved from that era to the present one. And, I am not opposed to the satellite channels for it has presented our generation with unlimited choice for entertainment. But there are times when I wistfully reminisce about the good old days.

Back then, the serials had a definite end to them. No never-ending, tear-jerking soap operas where the dead come back alive years later with plastic-surgeries done. No repeating, mix-matching or horribly messing up of plots. Vamps did not sport a scary and gory bindi with equally-matching jewellery and outfit. The camera did not freeze onto the faces of the 50-odd members of a typical household to capture their reaction to a death-spelling punch dialogue from the baddie. No hair-raising or heart-wrenching background music accompanied every single event in life. The important events-birth, marriage or death-were not portrayed to the minutest detail leaving the viewers completely exhausted.

The story-lines had depth, meaning and the duration lasted no longer than 13 or max 26 episodes. Buniyaad and Hum-log were considered mega-serials back then. Who can forget the rib-tickling comedies like Yeh jo hai Zindagi (starring Satish Shah and Swaroop Sampat), Ulta-pulta (Jaspal Bhatti’s brain child) and Wagle ki duniya. As children, we would wait for Sunday to tune in to our favourite cartoon series beginning with Mickey and Donald, He-man, Giant-Robot, Ramayana even. The Saturday evening Hindi films and Sunday afternoon regional films were much eagerly awaited ones as they were the only times we got to view them. The 9 p.m. serial would begin after the mandatory news and then the programme-reporter would announce the list of programmes. We would wait with bated breath to hear “agli kadi” (next episode) as opposed to “akhri kadi” (last episodes) for our favourite serials.

When we talk of serials can the advertisements be left behind? Back in the good old Doordarshan days, there were no commercial breaks between the serials. There used to be a separate slot for them before the programme began. Nevertheless, we would love to watch them. The commercials, as they are now called, were not hammered into our brains every 10 minutes into a serial or a movie not only breaking the continuity of the show but also interest of the viewers. Ads or commercials have come a long (in a good form) way. There were a good number of great commercials even then. The “Lalitaji” ad, “Prestige-cooker” ad, “jab main chota ladka tha, badi sharat karta tha- Bajaj bulb” ad or “chal meri Luna” ad, each one holds fond memories of yester years. Who can forget the famous Fevicol ad that starred Raju Hirani? Even so, commercials of today, to a large extent(barring the fairness ads that grates on one's nerves), have kept pace with the current trend of being fast-paced, ever-evolving and creative.

The face of the world is changing so rapidly that the gap between two generations is rapidly closing. Every two years, a new generation seems to take birth. When my father, an ardent fan of the black& white movies, especially the likes of Guru Dutt and Dilip Kumar, would remark,”kahan gaye wo din?” I would say, “Oh! How can you watch the painfully slow- paced movies, where one actor takes eternity to respond to the other person?” Ironically, here I am reminiscing about DD days. If you do not change with time, you become an antique piece only to be appreciated in a museum. DD met the same fate for not keeping in tune with changing times. But that does not take away its past glory. Here is to when old DD was really gold. Cheers!

Read More