I woke up this morning and thought about something that has
not occurred to me in the last 24 years. It is the thought that comes uninvited
to many Asian women, as they look at themselves or their daughters. It can
strike at any time, morning day or night. It may be heard, said aloud by caring
visitors, mostly women themselves, there to commiserate or gloat as the case
may be. It is the question of fairness.
Now I do not mean the kind of fairness that makes me decide
in favour of little Johnny with the harelip in a fight against Gorgeous George.
I do not mean the fairness that says I have to give equal time to Indian
cricket and Aussie rugby league on weekends. That I can stomach and even make
jokes about. No, I mean the fairness that is highly prized by us brown skinned
types as something more important than life itself in some cases.
When I was growing up, I do not remember anyone remarking on
my complexion as something that would mark me down in any way. For that I guess
I must be grateful to my parents. I knew what my skin colour was, darker than X,
Y and Z, fairer than A and B. And I was happy to accept that. I did not hear a
lot of praise for X, Y and Z regarding looks, intelligence or ability to do
housework, which made me relax even more and continue to be happy with the
particular shade of mocha I came with. Ahh, poor deluded me!
The first inkling I had of being somewhat not up to the
grade was when it came to the marriage game. My aunt on my father’s side,
Jethima, who had always been a vague pale blur on my consciousness suddenly seemed
to be all over the place with advice on how to ‘brighten’ my looks.., my ‘ujjwal
shyam borno’ as she said with a titter. Suddenly I started to notice her,
finding out that she had been selected for her colour as my father had gone
against all his family’s wishes and married a woman who was his equal in
intellect before his brother could make a selection from the marital
smorgasbord offered to him. Added to this was her ability to chew out her
English in a very La Marts way as she told me with great pride. She who had
been selected for her complexion spent hours each day sorting out the daily
meals in the gloom of a prehistoric kitchen under my grandmother’s eagle eye. I
have always felt sorry for people who stutter, because I saw how her stutter
grew worse through the day as my Thakuma’s tongue grew sharper and more barbed.
It was always worse on traditional fasting days, like Ekadashi, the
eleventh day of the lunar cycle when Thakuma grudged all and sundry their meals.
Finally with me, she found a way of getting her own back on Thakuma and my mother. I
was in college till about one o’clock each day. The minute I came home, she
would hover around the place with a bowl of masoor dal bata, ground red
lentils, or a bit of besan mixed with dudher shor, chick pea flour and cream. I
would smile vaguely back before grabbing the bowl from her and disappearing
into the bathroom. I occasionally put the evil goop on my face and came out to
find her still waiting. Even on the days that I tipped the bowl down the sink,
she swore she could see me growing fairer beyond all belief! I have to admit,
it was quite nice to see her feel so happy for a while over something she was doing
for someone else.
Around this time, I started going out with a doctor. I
noticed him because he was rather good at French, the pronunciation, not the
other, in my first week at Alliance .
When he came to pick me up at home as we were going to expand our horizons over
a foreign film or two, our maid, Sushmadidi noticed that he was fair…and
declared the alliance to be ill fated and unlikely to last long. She was so
right too! Just as I was starting to tire of his attempts to involve my father
in being selected for an MD seat in Skin and Venereal diseases, his mother
asked to see my photo. Once that had been done, the end was very near. I still
remember the last time we talked, me slightly impatient and annoyed at the bus
that was not early enough for me to escape, him, superior in his fairness,
getting on the bus to Kaikhali Mor! Even
the bus bowed to his betterness!!
This brings me to why I have not thought of this issue for
24 years. I had a fair skinned baby girl on a day 24 years ago. And although
her grandmother was quick to point out that a male first child would have been
appropriate, given her status in life, the peaches and cream baby made her
reluctantly concede that I had done well. I also had two sons after that, who
took after me more than their sister. They were exempt from the need to be fair
though, as someone pointed out kindly, ‘Heerer angtir abar bnaka aar shoja!’
A diamond ring is worth it even when bent out of shape!
Last night I was sent a link, not by someone who has been
using the product I must add, to the latest assault on us ‘ujjwol shyam
bornas’ He thought I would find it hilarious. Now I have to say, I don’t,
because it is not. It is sad and indicative of how little some of the world has
actually moved from the Middle Ages when it comes to giving women their
rightful position in life. Hell, I take my position, I don’t even wait around
to be asked. But I leave you with these links to have a look at. I told my
daughter and she greeted the news with what my Jethima, my grandmother and her
grandmother would have described as unladylike snorts of loud unfeminine laughter.
And that too is fine and perfectly acceptable!
