COLOR CODE

Three days back a tweet from the Indian test opener Abhinav Mukund became viral in several social medias.  This tweet was neither about match fixing nor about any on-field controversy; rather he expressed how flabbergasted he has been since his childhood because of a highly prevalent social issue.  Those who follow cricket or those who are active in social media might be aware about this tweet.  For those who are clueless, let me tell that it was all about “Color”, the skin color.  He was bang on expressing his anguish over this issue that has definitely reduced the morale of many people at different stages of life.

     I have not watched television since last 3-4 years but I do remember all those disgusting advertisements of brands like Fair & Lovely, Olay natural white, Emami fair & handsome in which the girls/boys acquire truckloads of confidence after becoming fair-lovely-handsome within one week after applying all those magic creams.  I feel these advertisements indirectly convey the nauseating message that black denotes “Unfair & ugly”, and it is their cream that makes people white i.e. “Fair & lovely”.  In a country where some of these cosmetics companies openly advertise the strong negative correlation between “skin color” and “Morale”, Mukund’s tweet getting viral is not at all surprising.

     There are people, in our friend circle, in our families, in our neighborhood, who love the color “Black” when it is related to clothes, vehicles, shoes, wallets etc.  However, some of those people do not like this color when it is related to a human being!  I am not sure when people will realize that black skin is nothing but a high melanin content and if you can love black objects how can you dislike black subjects?  Moreover, this color-coding has affected the female gender more than the male gender.  It does not matter what the skin color of a boy is (no offence), he and his family members (irrespective of education) invariably look for a so-called “fair” girl for marriage! I can not imagine what a girl must be going through when a non-Tom Cruise/non-Bradley Cooper/non-Gerard Butler (I mean a “not so white”) boy comes with his family and rejects the marriage proposal just because the girl’s melanin content exceeds the upper limit for arranged marriage! The same goes for the movie industries.  Many would realize that not a single so-called “Hero” or lead actor in Bollywood has dark skin.  Even if they are marginally dark, the make-up artists ensure that they look fair on screen.  So subconsciously the society has provided us the feedback that ONLY white represents beauty!

     Are we hypocrites when it comes to colors? My personal answer is “Oh…YES…absolutely”.  Majority of us must be worshipping Goddess Kali or Lord Jagannath or Lord Shiva or Lord Krishna on a daily basis (atheist, please skip this section).  We can well realize that most of our divinities were actually dark in complexion.  Even the devotees fondly address them as “Maa KALI”, “KALA thakura”, “Jaga KALIA”, “Krishna KALA”.  So my point is, if we can worship someone with dark complexion how can we dislike or bully someone with the same complexion? If this is not a good example of hypocrisy, then what it is? When someone like Mukund who plays for the nation gets bullied in the social networks, only for his dark complexion, imagine how much an ordinary citizen must be facing in his/her daily life.  It is time to move on, time to respect all human beings; trust me, skin color is nothing but melanin! I completely resonate with Mukund’s last sentence “Stay true, stay focused, be comfortable in your owk skin”.