13 September 2009

It does matter if you’re black…it doesn’t if you’re white!

MJ’s epoch-making song might have inspired our impressionable young minds, but what I saw and heard a few days back has left a taste so bitter that I have barely been able to overcome it.

My friend’s daughter is a tad dusky – well that’s what I would describe her complexion as…however for some of her friends in an upmarket school in Gurgaon, she is ‘black’ and therefore only eligible to sit at the back of the class. Shudder!! Childish as it may sound, but this little girl who is barely 10 was asked to “polish her face as well while she cleans her shoes everyday in the morning.” Is this a malaise of newbie-yuppie Gurgaon, or is this a problem which runs deeper in our society…for we are all aware how, obsessed the average India is about fair skin and how we are still one of the largest markets for bleaching creams!!