When it’s dark, we can’t see you!

When I was in college I was seeing a guy who was quite fair. In fact, he was fairer than me – something he never failed to remind me of. He would tell me that I needed to take better care of my skin. Just because I was darker, he would tell me that I wasn’t good looking. He was very concerned that I should look good whenever we were in a social situation and according to him, looking good meant that I should be fair. Naturally, this attitude made me quite uncomfortable.

I wasn’t the only one affected by this ‘fair is beautiful’ mindset. A few of my friends have also faced pretty offensive comments such as, “When it’s dark, we can’t see you – only your teeth” and so on. I don’t like such statements and I honestly don’t see why we have to have a ‘sense of humour’ about them. I don’t understand why people would take such comments sportingly when these comments are anything but funny. Maybe my friends did so because they didn’t want to hear even more such ‘funny’ comments and I’m glad that they were able to brush it off.

I’ve faced the same thing from my relatives, neighbours and so on. “Why do you look so dark? Do you stay up all night? Why do you have dark circles under your eyes?” These are just a few of the things that have been said to me. I don’t give any weight to these opinions but that wasn’t always the case.

The primary problem I faced was that I have dark circles under my eyes and this is hereditary. This means that if I sleep even one or two hours less than my usual quota, these circles become prominent. Once I get enough rest, they fade. I was so self-conscious as a child about these that I became a very shy person who didn’t like socializing because I was constantly asked about them.

Now, these comments are water off a duck’s back. I may even be a little proud of them since they indicate that I’ve worked hard.

This whole mindset is an amalgamation of society’s expectations and the fairness industry catering to these expectations. For example, I tried using under-eye creams for the longest time, hoping to get rid of my dark circles. Naturally, it didn’t work. Society sets up the expectation that you must look a certain way and companies use these expectations to market their products.

I think each person needs to develop awareness about this but the onus is on our generation. We are changing our mindsets and we need to convince our elders to value who people are more than the way they look. We need to say, “Hey, look, we aren’t worried about who’s dark or fair. Who and what the person is are what matters.”

Parishmita,

Hindustan Motorcycling Company