The Racist within...

Picture courtesy: Indian View String

With a wheatish complexion, I can’t much think of any particular instance, when I would have actually wished to be fair skinned. I know and have seen girls of my age (that has passed and that in which I am) touchy about their skin and looks. They would rather die than see a tiny pimple on their faces.  Nothing wrong with looks, but to worry for your colour and do every possible bit to make it go white, is a bit too much. I have been quite a contented on this front; never obsessed with my looks or desperate to be 'white' to be appealing and attractive to others. Actually, I never really knew what significance, so to say, colour held, and holds. I would acknowledge unabashedly that I was too slow for my age to catch up with stuff like this. Now, when I think back, I recall some shady memories of my school days.

I remember my 'so called' friends, who would match their skin colours with each other and the fairer of all would take pride in it, as if the birth in human form was just about that. Different skin shades were analysed and then the darker once mocked and made fun of. Being fair was like all a girl could dream of in life, to be able to look appealing and attractive in peer circles. I never internalised these frivolous thoughts and talks, good heavens!

I, now draw linkages between what happened then and what is popularised, sometimes in a subtle way, through the media. I see Shah Rukh Khan mockingly advising the boy to use 'mardon wali fairness cream', to look fair and handsome. During my high school days, advertisments of 'beauty soap- 'fair & glow' used to be advertised frequently in between daily soaps and programmes. Fair and Lovely was already there even before I was born! The advertisements of  'fair & glow' sounded so convincing like an assured tested formula to make the skin go fair that for once,  I was lured into using it. Today, when I think of this, I laugh to myself. Now there are a plethora of such fairness products rocking the markets. Bollywood personalities too have been endorsing these fairness products for the time immemorial. Such advertisements also become carriers of the superfluous message that ‘white is desired’ besides creating a market demand for the products.

When I surf through television channels and serials, seldom do I see dusky and dark female protagonists, in any of the leading soaps (as per the most talked and watched serials at home by most women). Dark is projected and perhaps, perceived as poor, substandard, low class and unattractive in the general sense. One may disagree with this, but deep within, most girls, sometimes even their mothers, are desirous of fair skin for their daughters, which is considered beautiful and attractive, half war to secure ‘good’ prospects won with this alone. I have seen children as small as those of pre-primary and primary schools showing and articulating reservation in befriending dark skinned counterparts, and parents not really vehemently objecting to it. Even in the matrimonial, one would often come across the wish for a fair bride.


If one gets conscious of the entrenched racist mindset, I am sure, like me, others will also see racial discrimination in one’s own surroundings. External wars on racism and ‘apartheid’ may have been won in the political front, but it is extremely difficult to gain victory over our own internally distorted mindsets. 

We get perturbed with the news of racial attacks on Indians abroad. Which racism then do we get repulsive about, and what are the different parameters of the racism of which America and Britain are accused of and that which we practice in the society, in our homes, with our near ones, if not dear ones? A racist resides deep within every average and highly placed individual. It is not really the education which helps you see through all this and challenge, but the over emphasised and reinforced stereotypes, which make us accept things unquestioningly, as a normal way of life. This is how minds are conditioned and stereotypes are abetted.

Waiting to be One

Love poetry, by- Lee Macqueen

I wait for us to be together always,

I wait for us to live as one,

Live as one soul in two bodies;

as one living with one breath in one abode.

I wait to wake at dawn with you

See my sunrise and dusk with you,

Arms in arms, head lay in ur bosom,

to live and grow in you, forever.

I wait to embrace you with my kisses, amass,

To be arm in arm in the warmth of your love;

Can't say how long the wait has been,

I know you endure the same as me.

I wait to see that day final, when we will be united and gay,

When I will be by your side and you by mine;

taking vows of living together throughout our Life

Wiping out the memory of days spent apart.


Picture courtesy: Damir

Triumph over emotion

By - Lee Macqueen

I feel a void in me,

I don’t know what keeps troubling me,
I want to get rid of it,

Of the attire of gloominess that drapes my
heart and mind like forever, with it.

I feel a void in me,

I don’t know what keeps bothering me,

I search for it, in reflections and introspection,

My days are heavy, as weight attached to my feet.

I know I will overcome these soon,

Soon I will transcend these,

I know I have to come over this,

For I am not the one who will retire.

Then after, there will be no void; no affliction and no predicaments;

For I have found HIM who listens to me,

HE has held me through the high and the low,

HE has promised to sail me through the undying bewilderment,

For my heart and mind to exuberate,

FOREVER and EVER and EVER!!

Sometimes...

Picture Courtesy: Rosie Hardy's "freedom"

Sometimes,  just give up the chase for answers and reasoning behind every  thing on this planet. Sometimes, everything needs to be left free without attaching any meaning to it. Sometimes, just not judge, just not find faults and problems in everything that surround us. Let us dare to accept our faults with a conviction of improving and learning from them. As human beings, we are just forgetting to live with worries on our shoulders, in the race to get across the finishing lines which we ourselves draw everyday with each new aspiration that burgeons in our hearts and minds. Let us allow ourselves a sigh of relief, a breath of life!

Sometimes, lets just accept our mortal limitations. Sometimes, lets take courage in getting to the impossible. Sometimes, forgetting our distinct origins, religions, castes, ethnicity, colour, class, sex, age, dislikes, hatred, and man made considerations alike, live like human beings, created to prosper and co-exist. Don't know till when mankind will continue to slaughter man kind. Don't know till when we will continue to get swayed by rhetoric of hatred and inflammation against the fellows made of the same flesh and blood.  Let us find out the possibilities of seeing humans being respected for being humans. Sometimes, let's think about that which is barely given attention in our drawing rooms and gatherings. Sometimes, let's liberate ourselves of all unwanted and destructive thought.

Sometimes, let us to grow up in our thoughts and deeds, moving a step beyond our selfish selves. Sometimes, let us try to feel the pains of others, and not just cry out ours. Sometimes, a lot many things which are never attended to in thought or in actions, be done for not forgetting that we are human, and not machines. Sometimes, let us live for ourselves, other than living for others and doing things that we do out of obligation and compulsions, which we will anyway do till we are into ashes. The day and moment we do these 'sometimes' will be the moment of fulfillment and self worth. Let us try to do it often Sometimes...just do it! I know it is not easy to reveal our inner selves for fears of rejection and image distortion, but I am sure, everyone would be desirous of  having someone with whom there is no fear of rejection and 'what s/he will think of 'me' and 'you'. Let us aim to live a life so free, whenever possible, some times.

Distances bridged Distances

Having cracked an online course on Minority Rights, hosted by Minority Rights Group International (MRGI) under the Global Advocacy Programme (GAP),  I got the opportunity to visit two countries, at a stretch of about two weeks, Bangkok (Thailand) and Geneva (Switzerland), from 17 November-1December 2011.

Everyone at my work place, close cousins, friends and family, all would enquire about my feelings and thoughts on the foreign trips I was soon to embark upon. I am sure I denied everyone any expected answers ;) which the normal Indian bourgeoisie would look for, i.e. those of over excitement and dream come true and etcetera. Not that I never had the aspiration to travel abroad, but now when I was getting the chance, I was torn between my mind and the heart. I did not know whether to rejoice in the Lord for this, or continue to feel sad about going miles away from my home and the beloved! While on the one hand I found everyone happy for me, I realised I wore a confused look on my face all the days till I finally left for Bangkok.

Four days in Bangkok went off fine for it was still like India in terms of the topography, precisely the surroundings, streets, some Indian people, some famous Indian restaurants, and some Indian TV channels which could be easily switched to. This was one culture that I was witnessing, and this gave me the warmth of being in my own country. Thankfully!

Being in Switzerland was another experience. It is needless to mention anything about the scenic beauty of this country. The land of snow and heights, the Alpes! My arrival alone in Geneva made me think why most Indian movies are increasingly shot in Switzerland. It was ‘cold’, like the chilly breeze of winters in mid December and January in India. It was calm, scarcely populated in the literal sense, lonely streets without the obsessed honking as in Delhi and no school going children to be sighted, traffic moving in the opposite direction (as opposed to the traffic movement in India), women running around with their offspring with most laid in the pram, and so on. The only assembly of people I witnessed used to be during the office hours in the morning, at the bus stops, and then for the rest of the day, everything was undying silence.

I witnessed there the autonomy each individual possessed at work place, dignity of labour, no unnecessary or profuse formalities for international guests (called for the UN Forum on Minority Issues), easy moving lives and the old couples enjoying life at their age. Everyday short journey in the public buses and morning view outside the window made me think of the different life styles and cultures I was witnessing. While in India people struggled from dawn to dusk to make ends meet; malnourished children beg on the streets; women carry their infants seeking alms on the signals; physically incapacitated human beings crawling on the streets and outside the religious institutions; scams becoming the daily bread; servitude and subservience and evils like caste and genocide in the name of religion were being practiced with pride, here in Geneva, I was in a new world, a world, where perhaps every individual ‘lived’ a life and not just endured it. Even though solitary for me, the stay in foreign made me see through the stark differences.

All said and done, I was still craving to be back to my country. More than my home, I was missing my country, my city, Delhi, when I was there, miles away. A virtual fight had again taken off in my mind. Why was I missing my country, when I was away from everything that troubled me, even if for few days? I don’t know if it was just because of my family or if the distances made me undergo the feeling of being in an unknown country. I think it was also because the people here are livelier, streets are buzzing and here we will find people to be by our side in our happiness and sorrow, even if not called for.  Despite all the goodness and mesmerising beauty, I wanted to come back, and had started counting the days backwards, from the end of day one. I had never thought I would miss India like this. Perhaps Geneva was really 'Cold' for me.

Sometimes, sporadic and strange thoughts just assault me, and make me fight them back. I am just happy to be back home, for my absence also brought my beloved close to my family and they got to know each other well. ;) Distances bridged distances that were hard to be imagined.