A Whiter Shade of Pale

The first rays of spring sun are shyly beaming through my window. Ah, spring! Oh…spring... Summer clothes. Will I fit in? Will I need some more? This is not my problem. My biggest dilemma is exposing those disgusting winter legs of mine. For some reason I am not as worried about my arms, or shoulders, or my face being so pale. Although my legs sport the same colour as the rest of my body, I seem to really stress about showing them to the world.

Year after year millions of women like me, agonize over the same thing. We go through denial (I don’t care how white I am, I will wear what I want, when I want and if someone doesn’t like it they can just stick it), complaisance (ah, who cares, who’s gonna look at me anyway) and just as we decide to dare it, we see someone walking down the street, proudly flashing those blindingly white thighs. Dropping the shopping bags, we run to the nearest place where we are ready to pay any amount of money to get that perfect golden hue.

Year after year, millions of people in South and South East Asia beat us by spending easily thrice the amount of money to look lighter. The cosmetics industry has made billions of dollars selling skin-lightening products to women there, as the notion of beauty is heavily weighted in favor of lighter skin. And it doesn’t end there. Recently, multinational cosmetics makers have discovered a vast, virtually untapped male market. And they are lapping it up. The pale men stand in line at the spray-tan studios at the very same time as Indians, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are told that having fairer skin is the fastest way to fame and fortune.

Commercials, billboards, magazine advertisements drum the unrelenting message: lighter, fairer skin is the key to getting that dream job and hooking that gorgeous girl/rich guy.

Even mythological characters are depicted light-skinned in paintings and other popular media even though ancient scriptures and texts describe them as striking beauties with dusky lustrous complexion. In Mahabharata, one of the major epic of India, Draupadi, a “fire born” daughter of Drupada, emerged from the yajna (sacred fire) as a beautiful dark-skinned young woman. Vyasa (author of the Mahabharata) described her as the most beautiful woman of that time with a radiant dusky skin, large intoxicating eyes and a graceful stature. Mythology describes Parvati, the divine consort of Lord Shiva, as the goddess of power with a ‘yellowish coppery’ skin. Goddess Sita, the wife of Rama known as a lady of incomparable beauty was earth-born and coloured like the golden soil of India. Gleam and lustre of the skin, illustrated the appearance, skin tone was of no significance.

Finest examples of this are the frescos and murals that decorated the Ajanta caves. The chief female figure (queen, dancer or an apsara) in all the compositions is of a darker complexion than the maids or attendants around her. Black complexion was considered attractive and a beauty asset.

So what has changed? Where do the feelings of superiority/inferiority based on skin colour stem from? How is it that educated, well-travelled and intelligent people are given to doubt about their self – worth according to the way they look?

Already ancient Greeks had developed a study of physiognomy, according to which you would be put into this or that category. Blond curls? Patrician, pretty, soft, well – natured. Strong chin, hooked nose? Leading qualities. High forehead: noble and proliferous thinker. Any deviation from the above: second-class citizen.

Years ago my husband and I were invited to a Gujarati wedding on Fiji island, which boasts a big Indian community. The bridegroom was his colleague, but as we came we couldn’t see him straight away. We were told that he couldn’t leave, as he was undergoing a two-day ceremony, part of which included being covered with a paste that would ensure that his skin is light and glowing on a wedding day. Actually both did it: the bride and the groom. They emerged only on their wedding day, looking fresh, well groomed, happy at having seen each other and realizing they were both cute, flushed with shyness, but paler? I felt that a mere thought of having undergone that ritual, made them feel special and somewhat superior.

Now, in my humble opinion, even without this humdrum, Sanjay looked pretty hot. His bride anyway, a graceful being with huge eyes and a bashful smile. Why would a mere thought of being a shade paler make them feel special? Different? Does this whole craze date as far back as the superior Aryans, who were meant to be pale, alluding to descent? The purer the blood, the lighter the skin?

My guess is that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, but in his pocket. A certain society level has always dictated what was considered to be beautiful at any period of time, at any place. Moreover, it was important to look different. At no circumstances, a person of a particular stand was to be mistaken for a lower- stand individual. Certain differences came about in a natural way – people spending their time leisurely, in the cool shade of their domiciles, looked naturally lighter than farmers who spent their time on the fields under the scorching sun. Whether in India or in Europe, anywhere in the world, the affluent were safe from the elements, softer, plumper and paler.

Today the tables have turned. We earn our daily bread mostly indoors, sitting. We know more about health and it’s connection to movement, diet and fresh air. Who’s got the time to indulge in self – reverie again? The affluent. As a result one, at a glance, can tell again who they are – they are now thinner, their cheeks glow with a healthy tan, fake if need be. Nothing has changed. Twenty first century, and people all over the world allow themselves to be manipulated by all sorts of reason – denying humbug delusions of grandeur. The ones that profit from it are not us, who are either scorching ourselves in a solarium working heavily on our melanomas, or bleaching our skin thin and dry. It is the cosmetic companies that have learned that if everyone would feel good about themselves, they would all go bust. And do look at the owners, for example the affluent Arnault or Pinault families – they are all billionaires, and they are all pale, and not particularly attractive.