White UP White DOWN…

 So basically once again we got manipulated by ubiquitous commercials. But this time, it’s different!! We don’t want fairness creams (for females’ private parts).

I got to know about so called fairness cream after I read that there was a furor in Rajya Sabha (upper house in Indian Parliament) regarding it. According to them, the concerned commercial was debasing females. Well, the first thing I did after reading that article was signing in my you tube account( so that I could see the commercial even if it were X-rated). I had to see it as I wanted to know what it was that made it more attention-seeking and women debasing than various gang-rapes, eve-teasing, honour-killing of women, all of which never create such furor in Rajya Sabha, on print-media, digital media..

I saw it. I saw it once again and read the you-tube users’ comments on that commercial. And I started to figure out what exactly was wrong.

I was sure that one of the reasons for the uproar was that the product dealt with female private parts. Another reason was the story-line of the commercial, which according to me was confusing, like other commercials. It showed a husband/boyfriend ignoring his plastic doll-like-wife/girlfriend. The sad female is shown with the product, followed by a not-so-offensive-sketch of a female applying the product on the darkest area of the body. Meanwhile, the specifications were told which were mainly about keeping the concerned part dry, clean and also making the complexion lighter. And so in the end, the husband/boyfriend was happy. Yeae!!

And so, viewers focused on only one aspect of it and that was the fairness one, not the hygienic ones. Even the product’s name has got no word related to fairness. But still they took it as female-private-part-bleaching-cream.

Men thought that the next product might target their private parts’ skin. And so they felt offended in advance. Also they thought that the product was typecasting them as racists and narrow-minded.

They won’t say it openly, “ darling, if you don’t have 'it' fair,

                                             you may use the product there,

                                            at least you can have it considered

                                             I might even do it for a longer time, my dear.”,

                                         Ha! But that’s what many of them may say it loud and clear,   

                                             but only in their private minds’ corners……..

                                                                                     

Women professed that the concept of the product was senseless. They don’t have to show 'it' to impress/attract men. And because showing *it* is not involved in the process, unlike what was shown in the advertisement, they don’t really require the product.

Now let me ask all these thoughtful critiques that why such uproar is not created when almost all the advertisements for men deodorant show skimpily-clad-females going wild after males using the advertised deodorant. That’s not debasing women? And will they use their moody logic towards such advertisement? Because going by the advertisement, I should transform into a sexually hyperactive female running crazily after some random guy using ‘the’ deodorant; also I’ll smell the scent even if I were a mile away. But no, they won’t use their logic over here.

I’m not judging the product or its usage. If you don’t like or want it, don’t use it. Why does anyone have to get the product banned? Do we take care of those body parts only which are to be shown in near future? We all go to beauty parlor and saloons and use shampoos and soaps and other ‘beauty’ products. Do we use them to attract the opposite sex? I personally like to keep myself groomed (at least at basic level) even when I don’t have to step out of my house.There are already facial fairness creams and fairness ‘body’ lotions for females. 

There are advertisements that show using certain toothpaste (once again) attracting female mindlessly towards a random guy using the product. Now do we all use tooth-paste for that? May be some do. And this is where the manipulation comes in. Read the specifications and advantages of a product. If you think some of those might help you in some way, then use it.

There is definitely something wrong with the ‘fairness addiction’ that Asians have. I already spread my views regarding it on an earlier blog-post(You may like to read Copper Maiden ).

But guys, grow up (pun intended). And women, we all are lovely and intelligent, but we don’t really have to sniff sense at everything(pun intended)!

image source: http://free-extras.com/images/black_and_white_daisies-1551.htm

Apathy?

                                                                                   

If there were ashes flying in the air

Would you be glad to see it?

And if snowflakes instead were there

Will from your eyes, emanate tears?

In mornings when your feet touch soft grass

Do they ever painfully sear?

And if you know somewhere a child is without meal

Will you still dare to waste a supper?

Or if an evil you confront in present

Will you welcome its footsteps into the future?

I know your answer is ‘no’

Because we are under our control and we know

The right, the wrong, the good , the bad

We can identify the comforts, the discomforts,

what makes us and people happy and sad

Then how with such ease, do we chose to suture

The mask made of ignorance towards suffering of others?

Look into your own eyes in the mirror

And try to evade the above question..

If you’re thinking I’m going to talk about compassion and kindness and mercy, then may be you are mistaken!!

What I actually want to highlight though is the complexity  of human mind (not anatomically). I wonder how could I enjoy a delicious meal while watching television, just five minutes after reading an article on the condition of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Obviously my mind was numbed by the joy my taste buds provided it with.

OK. Well I think that I am going to talk about compassion and ignorance. Continue reading. So let me throw some light on what I read about the condition of slum dwellers in Mumbai. Kids over there, at times, have to kill rats and feed on them. Other alternative may be collecting grass grown near a pool of stagnant water or some ponds (where we better-offs would chose to shut our noses and mouth). Lack of education and opportunities make working in nearby hotels as waiters, a dream job. They rattle junk materials in search of metals and to differentiate them. And so on. And I pledged that I would not waste any food thereafter. But I couldn’t keep my own promise; may be because I am not ‘Chulbul Pandey’ of our typical Bollywood movie ‘Dabangg’, whose famous dialogue goes like, “Ekbaar jo maine commitment kardi to phir main khud ki bhi nahi sunta.” ( “if I commit once , then I do not even listen to myself.”). Also I am no Mother Teresa and likes. So what can I do? And a prequel to this question is, “Do I need to do anything?”

I read all sort of bad articles, news on atrocities being committed in this world, in present, in history, and those that will take place in near future. I get moved, both emotionally and literally. I take a step ahead and forget. I may remember all the bad things that have happened in he past and get depressed but not once do I think of those underprivileged, I read about in the past, and then get depressed. I need to be keep myself abreast with such news to feel bad about them, or passionate about them. And I think most of the people reading or not reading this piece of article share the same story.

Well, as for now, I do the minimum I can do to help the underprivileged. I hope I raise myself to the platform where I will be competing in the field of philanthropy. For now, I need to compete in other fields to feed my stomach and my ambitions. The starvation for philanthropy is yet not felt by me. It's concealed and subjugated by the selfishness and greediness of my mind, just like those kids’ starvation is concealed by them, behind the veil of ignorance, helplessness, capitulation to their fate…

 Watch the video of this NGO 'Kartavya', also listed among 20 successful nonprofits started by students across the world

Image source: http://www.sonrays.org/2011_05_01_archive.html

Copper Maiden

 A fair skinned girl arrived, in an unpompous fashion, at a bus stop. But still, it made some men and few aunties look obliquely or directly at her. I was a mere spectator waiting to become a passenger in a bus that was so late that it seemed to be coming straight from a tour around the moon. Anyway, not getting digressed like the ‘Lost Bus’, I’ll come back to the bus-stop scene. So, I then ran my bored imagination to analyze that ‘Fair Maiden’s face. I toned down her skin complexion in my mind, and I realized that she wouldn’t have been attractive otherwise. I then saw another pretty-faced female with a dusky complexion standing a little far from the ‘Fair Maiden’, who had attracted some stares but not as much as the ‘Fair-Maiden’. And I was wonder-struck.

 I then recalled how every time,  my parents shower go-gaga-like appreciation on fair skinned females. “Itni gori hai ki haath lagao toh maili ho jaogi. Itni sunder hai wo.”(“So fair she is that if touched, her skin will get dirty. So beautiful she is.”)

Now I may comply, not literally, with their first phrase-like-statement on the degree of her fairness, but not always on the second statement. My parents here actually represent a large strata of our society having such mindset regarding beauty. In India, there’s an inexplicable nexus between fairness and beauty. No wonder, ubiquitous skin-lightening beauty products like ‘Fair & Lovely’, ‘Ponds White’ and now even 'Fair & Handsome’ flourish in market. Their advertisements depict depressed, dark-complexioned women, who had been ignored by employers and men, suddenly finding new boyfriends and glamorous careers after the cream had lightened their skin. And many such racist advertisements which further promote color based racism. And this is how the desperation to get fair prevails in the bourgeois. In here we come up with anti-tanning lotions and creams, whereas in west, they proudly boast their holiday-tan, sun beach-tan, artificial tan….

My grand grand father was a domineering 'zamindaar' (landlord) with three wives and many sons. But he got my grand-father married to my grand-mom just because she had a fair complexion. She in fact hailed from the poorest of the families residing in his village.

Though many Bollywood actresses have successfully fostered dark-beauty relationship, the long-living marriage of fairness-beauty is yet to be divorced!!

Fair skin is a traditional standard of beauty in many parts of the world. Often, those of upper class in past ages were not exposed to sunlight, as they didn't have to work in fields, thus, fair skin was associate with wealth, and since the wealth set the standards for beauty, pale skin was in. Also, probably it’s about the basic human nature; wanting something which we do not have.
In India people are usually dark-skinned or even dusky and so they aspire to become fair, whereas in west where people are fair skinned, they go for tanning for some reason. May be to look less pale. Similarly females with wavy or curly hair aspire to have straight hair and get them artificially straightened and those with straight hair, at times get bored and get them curled up!! That’s why, perhaps even in relationships, people have come up with ‘opposites attract’ logic.

Sadly even I fall in the category of those females who complain of getting tanned under the sun.

Nevertheless, this doesn't stop me from looking outwards towards those who promote such attitude towards complexion. 

In matrimonial section, one can find many advertisements wanting a fair bride. In fact beauty is supposed to be only skin deep. But I guess it’s just a proverb. What makes those adds more ridiculous is the fairness-beauty-lovely relation!!

Now, another thought flashes across my restless mind. Though Taj Mahal is known for its architecture, I still wonder what if it were coal-black? Would the ‘Copper-Maiden’ still be proudly boasted of as one of the wonders of the world then? 

                                              How grateful I am to the man, his kith and kin

                                                    To his gods and goddesses, all fair-skinned

                                                How much I appreciate the flowers, the sky

                                                    All of it is colorful and not just white

                                                How feeble I would be without the dark in the night

                                                    Everything need not be only bright

                                                How graceful I look in this mirror

                                                    Then why is it just my complexion that is noticed by those eyes?

                                                I too can be an angel and fly high

                                       I’m a Copper Maiden and virtuous, all right!!

Image link: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/copper-maiden-gunter-erik-hortz.html

India-A Conglomerate of child producing factories

Sounds harsh…very harsh indeed. But it’s a fact, a blot which no detergent making companies can claim to erase. It can be, only if we take the case out in streets like the famous ‘Dhobi-ghaats’ in Mumbai. It has to be a current matter on everyone’s lips. Then, perhaps we can come up with some solution. And when I talk of a solution, don’t treat me like one with godly powers as the only way we can up with a solution in this case is by elimination substitution kind of method. There’s no direct formula. We have to derive it in the process of solution-making as many a time, instead of dealing with the superlatives, we have to deal with  good and better, bad and worse!

With India’s population of 1.21 billion, we represent almost 17% of world’s population at a mere 2.4% of the world's land area. Population of UP almost equals to that of Brazil!

The main culprit as we all know is poverty, which is the consequence of illiteracy and corruption. And how does poverty inflect such injury on our society? Well, poor families who are not part of the main economy consider their family members as potential economic assets. Each family member contributes something to their household incomes.Wait, lets take a pause and apply reverse gear.

There are many  poor families who don’t wish to have an army of offspring. They have it only due to illiteracy, society norms, religion and less focus on these issues by our government (In fact Iran is the only country where mandatory contraceptive courses are required for both males and females before a marriage license can be obtained!).

They are either out of reach of contraceptives or are hesitant in using them. So what happens is that in order to increase the household income, they make each member responsible to feed themselves. And so arise the issues like child-labor, high school drop-out rate etc. But this is the story of poor families without enough opportunities even to make ends meet.

What about us? The better educated people we claim to be, what are we doing to help curb the problem of population. The growth rate of population in rural and urban areas in last decade was 12.18% and 31.80% respectively. The stark difference is due to migration and Us. We better-offs still aspire to cultivate at least two children.

Social problems have attracted our attention only when it satisfies our ego or when it entertains us. We delve into so called problems of the need of daughters of our and other families to get married soon and to get married in the same caste and sub-caste and sub-sub-caste. And if there is any out-of-caste marriage, then how to deal with ‘The Problem’ becomes the problem. But population growth is not an issue. What becomes the issue instead is couples cosying up in public parks. And then sprouts periodically, the ludicrous ‘Operation Majnu’, where a police woman perhaps driven by schadenfreude, hounds a couple in a park and makes the men do sit-ups causing immense chagrin to the couple and grabbing the grinning media reporters’ attention which again shoots the TRPs of the concerned channel viewed by the ‘Concerned Us’.

What is the problem? I think the problem is that even our middle class and the high class ends don’t know what the real problem is. They still motivate young people of their and others' families, to produce offspring as soon as possible and two children is a must! Adoption and abortion are far-fetched terms. ‘Condoms’ is a word that people still shy of uttering in public (even in their rooms!). But they are not shy of having three children. They are shy of talking about sex. They are not shy of doing it but despise the topic of the outcomes of their ‘deeds’!!

They are shy of displaying even hints of basic sexual affection like kissing and hugging in public but they don’t think once before relieving their bladder in public places or performing honor killing or having loud personal conversations in public places. The otherwise shy aunts are not shy of showing off their huge unclothed potbellies while draped in ‘sarees’(Indian traditional wear). But they are definitely against the western outfits worn by females.

We are hypocrites. The whole mankind is hypocrite. But where do we draw the line? We say, “We’re proud to be Indians”. But sadly we no more identify the ‘Indianness’ or even fail to define the same. Nevertheless we’re proud of being a country of entrepreneurs. We’ve established the factories that produce the beloved children, 'Our Future’ !

You also may like to watch this documentary about kartavya, an NGO..

image source: http://www.overpopulation.org/rabbit-cartoon.html, http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/some-more-population-growth-nonsense-from-india/

Anna's Oasis- A Mirage!!

 A TV news channel flashes the news proudly about some school children, somewhere in the age-group of  10-14 protesting and participating in the ongoing protests against corruption led by Anna Hazare and his team. The hysterical news seemed more ridiculous when a set of teachers from the same school applauded the protests by those schoolchildren. Another one showed women from a rural area naming their sons after Anna Hazare. There were many other pieces of news that were reported showing various people trying to grab the media attention in the process of which the news media definitely succeeded in grabbing our attention. It seemed everyone was following Rakhi Sawant’s footsteps to seek attention. And news media and reporters were following the ideology of an ongoing TV reality show, ‘Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega’.

I then immediately switched the channel to HBO. But my mind kind of prolonged the effect of inertia. It was still grounded to the same news and didn’t seem to move ahead. After all I’m an Indian too and dream of ‘Shining India’.

The current situation with boneless protests seems to share an analogy with the one where a person takes shelter under a plastic bag or a sheet when suddenly caught in an unprecedented thunderstorm.

 The point is that people’s enthusiasm and will to fight corruption is laudable. The unrest in the people is no longer swallowed by them to fill their stomachs. They seem to have realized that discontent within themselves is not going to fill their stomachs or fulfill their ambitions. It is time they are fed with something substantial and helpful. But then again they are fallen into trap  by getting misled that the Lokpal Bill and the road that they have taken will suffice their needs.

How many people participating in the protests actually know what Lokpal Bill constitutes.? How many of these people actually know about their constitution and various  provisions under it?

I was reading an article in The Indian Express, which centralized the ongoing protests around a famous idiom, i.e, prevention is better than cure. And that the Lokpal Bill will only help curing the disease of corruption to some extent and not really preventing it.

I was having a discussion over the ongoing protests with a wise (which is my perception) friend of mine during which I asked him that why the private sector in our country is more progressive than the public sector. Since liberalisation in 1991, our country has tasted a remarkable economic growth. And we ascribe this growth mainly to the private sector. May be the answer lies in the statement that mostly people working in private organisations work more sincerely than their counterparts in public sector. And so another question arose that why such difference is prevalent at all? And the answer was that may be the lack of timely appraisals and fixed appraisals(mostly with a minimum time range of 5 years) in public sectors lead to slipshod attitude towards work which gives rise to ‘chalta hai attitude’ which in turn gives rise to indifferent attitude towards their work which finally leads to unproductivity or inefficiency or corruption or all three of them.

We already have a fantastic constitution. Though one also requires proper functioning of it. And this is where the problem arises. We do not really need a separate statutory body to look into the grievances of all sorts prevalent in our society. We have an existent judiciary system and our constitution has the provisions of amendments. Most of the salient features constituting Lokpal Bill that is making it sell like hot cakes can actually be integrated in our current governing system. Our judiciary system can further me bolstered to check corruption in various sectors of our society. The criminal trials can be fastened. Let’s make better and more rampant the usage of RTI (Right to information act). We can try to better our education system by initiating ITS(Indian teaching services) as proclaimed in a movie named ‘Aarakshan’. There are so many other things that can be worked upon to attain fruitful(sweet and non-decaying) results.

The idealogies behind the bill are right but the methodology is wrong.

We are a democratic nation. But then what if one day we, the common people start marching in protest demanding right to decision-making in the Indian Army. I know the idea sounds ridiculous and is a perfect analogy to the current scenario.

How can we get a solution without identifying the problem. The solution to the problem definitely does not lie in shaving the problem everytime it rises. We have to pull it out with its roots. We know that population is the major hindrance in the development of our country. How many people participating in the protests believe in ‘Hum Do Humara Ek’  ('one child ') policy?

Issues like population control and adult literacy have to be looked upon more seriously. There are so many issues which have to be dealt with separately and effectively in a vast country of ours.

The mindset that youngsters today have towards government jobs has to be changed. Why is it that we relate government sector with dullness and private sector as a more happening thing?

The Anna Hazare campaign is trying to remind the unfairness which we have suffered for decades in the hands of corrupt officials. It is seemingly showing an oasis in a desert like situation. But the fact is that it is a mere mirage and we have fallen for it and have trodden our steps towards an unrewarding journey. At the end of it we’ll end up feeling more thirsty.

“Be practical..!!”, is a famous phrase that we youngsters use in our daily life. Many of us end up making it synonymous with the phrase“chalta hai” (“It’s OK”), which is certainly not being done by me right now. I really mean when I say, “Be practical”.

If one’s wish is to relish one’s eyes with ‘Shining India’ , then let us convert this protest into a more meaningful one with clear and deep rooted objectives which would automatically sweep the weeds off our fecund soil.

Let’s not use the childish toddler machinery in which children just throw a question mindlessly on their less dominating peers saying, “tu meri team mei hai ya uski?”(“are you in my team or in the other’s?”) which forces the innocuous tamer children into undesired polarised groups.

I’ve been getting many sad messages demanding(yet another demand by the people) to forward the same messages on the current protests to help Anna win his battle. Many of these messages are made mawkishly sentimental by concatenating the issue of Kasab’s pending death sentence!! They end with a notorious line saying, “I did my job…”

 Well my job is of a perennial nature which will go on to remain a responsible Indian citizen.

And I would rather end my post with “Jai Hind..!!”

Image source: http://www.petehobden.com/2011/02/people-in-crowd-tourist-trap-painting.html