Is it really "Fair"?

            Watching television yesterday, I saw a fairness cream advertisement which said, "Dark out, White in". The setup was a chess game and the boy knocks out the black pawn very easily suggesting that he will knock out the dark girl in the similar way, but then when the girl applies a certain fairness cream, she defeats the guy and thus the message of "dark out, white in" is propagated to about a twenty million people.
         Young girls in ads are seen ragged in colleges because they are dark, and when they apply some fairness creams, they get the confidence and get what they want. It is a stereotype which is now an integral part of us. This is not only among women but also men, and many advertisements show dark men unwanted and when they become fair using special creams, they are surrounded by girls. This is what the advertisement and film industry going to showcase in front of millions of young population?
          I think that they are the ones responsible for the current scenario in our country. After fair and lovely made it's debut in 1971, it took over the imagination of the young woman and fulfilled her wish of being fair. But what about the other people who didn't really take it's help?
           People judge a person looking at his or her colour, and not his talents. Today be it for making friends or getting selected for a job, everything depends on the fairness of the person, especially if she is a woman.
           Every woman today wants to have a "fair" skin, fair here means White, and not healthy glowing skin. People make fun if one is dark skinned. Sometimes, being talented doesn't really matter, what matters is the colour of the skin. Dark people mostly become the victims of racial discrimination and insults, that too in a country where the majority is dark skinned.
            But I wonder if Indians today are so concerned about fairness and White skin, is there really any difference between them and the english people? For over centuries indians have suffered from the stigma of black skin, and now our own national television is promoting that being dark is not accepted in the society. Is it even appropriate to show such ads on television, which is a medium propagated to the young minds, and create stereotypes in the society?
           Today if you pick up the matrimonial supplement of any newspaper, this is what u get: wanted a bride, qualities required: fair, tall.... Was the word fair really necessary when you a needed a new member in your family and not a product which you can judge by it's colour? But the Indian psyche or the age old prejudices of equating fair skin with good looks will never come to an end.
            Frieda pinto in an Indian interview had criticised this very issue of social inacceptance of dark skinned people. She herself being of wheatish complexion, has undergone discrimination on the basis of colour in India. And surprisingly it didn't happen the same way in Hollywood!
            People don't understand that we all have been dark skinned since ages, but nobody complained then. North Indians may be exceptionally fair, but that doesn't really change the fact that most Indians are dark skinned and there's nothing wrong in it.
            And for the people who are complaining, why do u celebrate Priyanka Chopra, former Miss. World and one of the leading actresses in Bollywood, if u do not respect dark skin?
            I have heard about a number of times people saying that having dark skin is a disadvantage. I really don't know what is it that they don't have what fair people have? It's an issue to ponder on, and think, if its really "fair" to promote "fairness  creams" in a way which is "unfair" to dark people.