The grass is fairer on the other side

Growing up Nepali, many of us young girls were and are still referred to as "Kali" - nothing more than a term of endearment, but not always a compliment. My thirteen-year-old cousin protests if I describe her skin tone as “kali kali.” As tweens and teens, the most impressionable ages, we are taught dark is hideous and light is beautiful.



Westerners wanting to tan themselves and non-Caucasians wanting to lighten theirs are nothing new, but the scale and degree of whitening in the sub-continent has turned something interesting into everything annoying.



Last I eyed the lotion aisle at Saleways it struck me as discrimination of racist proportions when it was literally impossible to track a tube of sun block that did not double as a "whitening agent." Some of us just want to fight the UV rays and not alter natural skin pigmentation. Hunting for face cream and body lotion that won´t supposedly work to “attack” the skin darkening agents is less a game and more a reality - you have to literally comb through the racks and reach deep into the back to un-dust a forgotten bottle.



If the ridiculous signboards that try and convince us fair is lovely are not enough of a public message (read: dark is not lovely), we always have televised advertisement. Trying-to-come-across-all-scientific 3D diagrams are used these days to illustrate how peeling off deep layers of our skin prove dark skin is merely hidden dirt.

It seems humans are indeed not composed of a variety of skin color. We are only composed of various degrees of dirt embedded on our face.



Out subcontinent´s fascination with pale skin is not only market driven but also dictated by culture and history. However, it is not all that different to the western world where a hundred years ago the palest women were often the most desirable. A woman’s skin tone hinted her class and upbringing. If a poor peasant girl worked in the fields and inevitably grew ten shades darker, one from an affluent family learned to crochet, courtesy and perform on the piano - all from the comforts of her home (read: protected from the harsh sun).



Only one fine day somewhere in the 1920s fashion guru Coco Chanel returned from a holiday in Southern France. Bronzed head to toe, a sun tan then came to signify exotic vacations the upper class were privy to while mere mortals were left behind pasty.



Each wants to inch closer to the other, even when it is physically impossible to be “golden brown” or “fair and lovely” for the vast range of skin tone known to mankind. What’s more, it´s not just about it being possible or not – but about the inevitable adverse effects of drowning ourselves in chemicals. So, there is hardly a difference in seeking to be the other.




The subtlety may lay with the marketing strategy alone. In the West, I recall little suggestion that “sun kissed” skin is attractive and a perquisite to success and love. Whereas in our parts, dreaming of a career and a lover to call our own, is laughable until we are supposedly a color our genes won’t permit.



Whether such equations are presumptuous, infuriating or insulting men and women can decide for themselves – after all men are no longer spared the wrath when Shah Rukh Khan lights a match off of the cheek of a dark skinned nobody.



Lesson learned: women can´t be famous and men can´t climb the corporate ladder because they just won’t have that confidence and capability without fair skin.

Two down, two to go. On top of targeting products at men and women, there is now "Teen and White" displayed on the shelves. It seems "Elderly and Fair" is the only unexplored venture left to exploit.



While men and women have the right to darken or lighten up as they wish, it´s not as simple as the case for free will. There are underlying marketing messages and social values which have been hammered into our heads - must whiten must whiten. The individual can only resist so much of society. Winnie the Pooh is clever as day - we are social animals and when we as social beings are told we must whiten up let´s not pretend it is an independent doing.



Few of my generation are fierce individuals, but few of us are also catching on to the cheap ploy as it tugs our colonized psyche´s insecurities - for aren´t the white skinned blonde girls the most attractive and the white-skinned blue-eyed boys the most athletic?



If there is one thing that can counter the blatant lies of multinational companies and the media - it´s culture and society. But with awareness and resistance attached to the same tool, such toxic masks – whether for brown girls to whiten or white girls to brown - can actually be pried off. We are of a plethora of skin tones, the last thing we need is to be told which one to lather on top.



sradda.thapa@gmail.com

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