Cursed colour differences among Indians

In most of the countries of the world, all native people are of the same colour. For example, all the inhabitants of Europe are white and those from Africa are black. But that is unfortunately not the case in India, It is populated by people having three different colours viz white, brown and black. Sociologists and historians suggest that the natives of India in those ancient times were all black and the invaders who came from Asia minor were white .According to them the invaders preferred to settle down in this rich and fertile land. Over years they begot children mixing with the local black people giving rise to the present brown people .Had this three groups, natives, invaders and the progeny between them preferred to live separately there would not have been any problem. But that was not to be. Now wherever you go in India, every caste, religion or community consists of people of the three colours. It is interesting to note that Hinduism does not refer to any brown god, but classified their Gods as white or black. Things would not have lead this colour disparity in to a curse, had not the people of India taken a decision that “white is beautiful/pretty” and all other colours are not pretty..
Now every young boy/girl , whatever his colour may be dreams of a partner of the white colour and those of the black/brown colour are not in demand in the matrimonial market. While boys want white wives(Ghori) , girls dream of white boys. Till about 20 years back , the major decision making power in matrimonial matches, rested with the boys. Thousands of black girls, found it extremely difficult to find good husbands. They had to choose very poor boys and some times were not able to get married.. Nowadays, the pinch has been transferred to the other leg. . Girl’s who are the decision makers in matrimonial matches these days, prefer to marry a white boy and many black boys find it difficult to get married. As a student of genetics, I do not see any solution to this curse, unless , Indians in general make up their mind about beauty parameters, which does not include skin colour.
Ramachander

Dear Ramachander,

It is general... Racism is universal... It is not very specific to India...

Yes... It is normal human nature to expect that he/she wants the better half to be beautiful/handsome... But in this process, they look at the external beauty and forget the internal portion... Each one have their own equation of their better halfs... So....

Wise person will look thro... But others compromise better qualities for beauty...

I agree with you but defining beauty by colour of the skin comes becuse of colour differences.Had we all been brown, our parameters for beauty would not include skin colour, Ramachander

Hi Ramchander,

Differences in skin will always be there...all over the world. Even brown will be different shades of brown...so where do you go from there?

I think the key is to interact more amongst ourselves, so that skin color becomes a peripheral thing and is not the all important thing it is made out to be (in India at least). That is why when you see couples who married for love (meaning they spend time with each other, got to know the nature of the other person and fell in love with the whole package), you will find that not all are classically beautiful or handsome or gora (white). They are attractive and charming in their own way, but I'm sure their spouse will not start to describe them by the color of their skin.

Incidentally, you might want to increase the geographical area of your research... I'm in the U.S. and here people have a more wider spectrum of skin color - more than in India. The difference in skin color, race, facial features cannot be more stark. Yet, people do not make you conscious of your skin color. At all.

I don't know how to describe it...but the feeling of not being categorized as "wheatish", can be quite liberating. You are who you are. You are never belittled because of your features or race or color. Your personality and charm is the main factor in making you attractive. It is only when I go to India that I sometimes hear a comment in the passing - "oh, you have become fairer" or "your sister in law is darker/ fairer than you" etc ...which makes me remember my "wheatish" skin color...

Again this is based on my personal experience and others might have a different story to tell.

Dear AArushi,
I also spent about an a year in the USA and have been reading about it for the past several years. I do agree with you, that beauty is not measured by the skin colour there. You may be interested to know about how Kali (black one) became Gauri(white one).
Kali was the daughter of the Himalayas and she was black. She did great penance to get Lord Shiva as her husband. He was pleased with her and married her in spite of her being black. It seems one day he teased her by repatedly calling her "Kali, kali" .This infuriated the goddess.she left Lord Shiva and restarted her penance. After 1000 years when Lord Brahma came before her, she only wanted to become white.Lord Brahma granted her this boon , and she shed her black skin and she became Gauri.Should all black women in India do penance to Brahm?Ramachander

Hi Ramachander,

Your story was interesting. It does highlight the emphasis on skin color Indians have culturally.

Praying to Brahma? Naah....that means we are not resolving the root of the problem, i.e. the perception that white skin color is better than black or brown.

The solution to this "curse" as you put it is that girls and guys should interact more amongst themselves (as I mentioned in my previous post).

When you interact with somebody on a regular basis, first impressions are never the last impressions.

A fair and beautiful girl might catch many hearts at first meeting. But on regular interaction, many might find that she is immature or vain or not compatible with them. Same for guys too. A fair and handsome guy might cause girls to sigh over him from far, but on regular interaction might not create such a good impression. On the contrary an average looking girl/guy can start looking beautiful to others if she/he has a great personality.

So rather than praying to Brahma or Shiva or Vishnu, it would be better to go out there and meet people. Develop a personality that people like...grow some self esteem and believe that the right person will come and fall in love with their personalities and not their skin color.

Aarushi

It is a curse in India to be anything other than white or fair. We are 6 siblings-3 sons and 3 daughters. My mother is white where as father was wheatish. My elder sister, first brother and second brother are fair and other three are wheatish. All except my elder sister, do not have any problem with this. She, inspite of being our won, always belittled us sisters in font of others for being wheatish. She is working in a different place than us and used to avoid taking me outiside when I visited her. The reason is she felt ashamed to say her sister is dark. Even now she is like that, she does not see the real person, only the colour of the skin.
She does not have children and she claims that she loves children. But she has a prejudice against our niece (she is wheatish like us) and she just does not want to see my son who is dark like his father. But her hubby is dark only and she married him because he was working abroad then.
But all white skinned people are not beautiful. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and also there is something as CHARM, which shows in a person's personality and not in colour.

I felt sad on reading your reply.Nowhere in the world other than India, the first necessity for being pretty is white colour. There is a continent of African blacks and I am sure that they do not consider themselves ugly.In spain both of them co exist and do not measure beauty by the skin colour. The most striking example is from Othello , where Desdemonia was white and Othello was black.As pointed out by you, this is not confined to boys but also very much prevalant in girls. Ramachander

This thread infact is kindling my old memories. I remember till date that a relative of ours used to call me "blacky" when i was a kid.
Just thinking of their unthoughtful attitude of instilling in the child an inferiority complex for no fault of theirs and committing a blunder of not teaching the child to look beyond the external beauty which is only skin deep.

A blessing in disguise though, i have learned not to compliment anybody for their beauty on the basis of the colour.

I hope people in India learn that "all that is white are not always pure!"

Usha

Hi All,
This is such a thoughtful thread, even in highly educated Indian society........some guys still prefers dumb fiar skins rather than wheatish but mature personality.
Even I don't have to go anywhere as I had several instances in our family also......
My mother is wheatish while my father is toooooooo fair, so my mom was considered to be luckey to get a husband like this but on the other hand my father's version is: He is luckey to get my mom as she is a best manager......say for everything from finance to her kids problems and she never bothered my dad for anything...........
Even some of my uncles preferred marrying wheatish ones over fair skin seeing my mom........
But still even my intelligent mom sometimes refer to some bride as not so fair in comparision to the groom...........
So, this kind of topic is a PARADOX..............fair skin never minds the colour while wheatish ones have complex abt their tone.........................