I once wanted to be Snow White

I was shopping at our local Indian grocers the other day and came across a familiar brand of cosmetics from the past - Fair and Lovely. Surprise surprise, it's still around. Not only is it still around, but many others have flourished since. I stopped, quietly reflecting for a moment my memories associated with the damn thing...

If I had a nickel for every time I've heard an aunty in India say, "She has lovely features but if only she was fairer...", I swear, I'd be a millionaire with a nice little rustic villa somewhere in the Italian Riviera, sipping coffee and basking in the evening sun. I have to admit, I've have been a victim to the 'fairness creams' scam (I'll reserve that for another time) and home remedies as well, smothering lemon juice and such on my face, back when I was a little girl convinced that if I didn't become 'fair' (light skinned) by the time I grew into a young lass, I'd be doomed. In retrospect, I'm terribly ashamed. But there weren't many people then to tell me otherwise and I was just an impressionable little girl in pigtails. I'd usually get the "she's pretty but too bad she doesn't have her brother's skin color..." line from people. Notice the 'but' that slips in there quite inadvertently. If only someone had told me then that dusky was sexy! :-) I find it quite disturbing and ironic that in a country where skin color spans every tone on the planet from the darkest to the lightest, every matrimonial advert will read, "...wanted fair, beautiful bride...". Never mind what the guy looks like. Imagine what girls with fairer sisters go through, not to mention the blatant comparisons by jobless women in the neighborhood.

I'm talking about hundreds of years of mental conditioning here, so deep rooted that people don't know they are a victim to it. Heck, I didn't know. It took a lot for me to come out of it. But once I crossed the rocky terrains of these set-in-stone dogmas, I found it apalling that I was living comfortably in that place once. A place filled with prejudices based on nothing. A place where questioning was not welcome. A friend of mine once said this in complete seriousness while in argument with me: "If you had a white colored handkerchief, it's like the difference between it being dirty and it being washed and clean". Enough said? I couldn't believe my ears.

I was reading a book last night titled 'Sceptical Essays', beautifully written essays by Bertrand Russell (I adore his writings) and this line stuck in my head: "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite."

I'm glad I have since always wished to to find out before I believed.