Skin biases aren’t new. And though we tend to tell ourselves that such discrimination don’t bother urban India much, that’s not always the case.
To change this mindset of our society is a difficult task indeed. Because in our part of the world “gora rang” is used as a yardstick to measure beauty.
Gore rang ka zamana, kabhi hoga na purana, Gori dar tujhe kis ka hay, Tera to rang gora hay.
Believe it or not, it is one of the major problems faced by many girls especially as far as their ‘getting married’ is concerned. A girl is rejected on the basis of her color, no matter if she is a duly qualified, bright professional, well mannered, well groomed, and attractive. The only thing that matters is her gora chamri. And the strange part is, skin colour of the boy is never a matter of concern for anybody.
Unfortunately it has now become a trend in our society. And this materialistic approach of our society shows that we still live in Stone Age, where we still consider woman as an object to be decked in one’s showroom.
It is not unknown that colourism or shadeism is a huge problem in Indian society and not only are girls taught not to play in the sun, not to drink too much tea, not to swim and wear covered clothes to avoid tanning, but matrimonial ads are always looking for a ‘fair and lovely’ bride, which can automatically dent anybody’s self esteem.
Discrimination on the basis of color is a bigger sin then dowry, and so rejection on the basis of color is utmost humiliating for a girl that it pushes them into depression and even to suicide in extreme cases. To make one self-beautiful (considering gora rang the only criteria for beauty) demand for fairness formula or creams are also on rise for the past many centuries. And to further infuriate the situation we have advertisement of these fairness creams, which are on a drive to deceive.
No wonder we see so many skin-care products, lotions on the racks and countless beauty regimes that aim at one thing alone-making you gori.
In nutshell, instead of judging beauty by their skin color, try to look other aspects of beauty which include overall personality, style, skills, manners, qualification etc. Don’t consider woman just a commodity or some expensive decoration piece place on some display shelf.