A few days back I was watching a reality show about cooking and was stunned by hearing the reason that contestant gave for coming to that platform. She was ignored and abandoned by her own friends as she was dark skinned; they felt embarrassed by being around her. However, it is not that shocking because in our minds we have created beauty is white. But who is to blame? You; me; society; media or Bollywood? I believe it’s constructive blame to be taken.

From the very young age, we are taught that looking beautiful is important. And beauty is defined by the colour of your skin. Now you must be wondering who the hell was telling us this when we were kids. So, your Granny used to tell your mother to drink that kesar(saffron) milk when your sibling was about to be born, didn’t she? As we grew older, we were told not to stay under sun for long because no matter it is going to make our bones stronger; but who cares, save the colour. And not to blame the parents they did they learnt.

Here comes the bright and beautiful story from Bollywood; so that heroine you saw in her first movie fresh and raw beauty a little dark skin has now turned into snow white after her success. And we all know how. But what was the need, she looked quite pretty before too. Bollywood made her believe she was not beautiful with the colour she was born. Not just heroines though, money has the power to make that hero shoot a commercial for the products that will take guys from zero to hero just by lightening their skin colour.

Pity is that we are even made to believe that talent too is chosen through these colour filters. My perception is, we need to change our mindset that how one is going to do in one’s life has nothing to do with the skin colour one has. If it were to be true, I wonder how many of us would have known who Nelson Mandela is.

© sanzia