Black and White

Please share widely

A derogatory picture from children’s textbook depicting “beautiful and ugly” is being circulated widely and has been the topic for a heated discussion. A few things come to mind as I look at this picture that transcends the skin color divide.

1. “Beautiful” means light-skinned and “ugly” means dark-skinned.

2. “Beautiful” means wearing jewelry and “ugly” means the lack of jewelry.

3. “Beautiful” means having blonde hair and “ugly” means having dark hair. What people from the Indian subcontinent have blonde hair? This basically means “beautiful” is Caucasian/White.

4. “Beautiful” means some fancy dress and “ugly” means wearing a sari.

5. “Beautiful” means being rich, probably upper caste and “ugly” means being poor, probably lower caste and doing menial jobs.

I am not sure if I missed any other messages. First, why do we need to teach the concept of beauty and ugliness to children, especially using living examples? A pile of garbage is ugly. The devastation after a war is ugly. But people? Children pick on these cues very early, and now, this picture reinforces so many stereotypes, blatantly showing the aspiration of people from the subcontinent to look like a White person. Long before the evils done by the film industry or the skin care industry, beauty standards were set by the colonizers. We lost our souls and pride to them long back. We just did not know it. Why should a “beautiful” woman need to look this way otherwise?

Someone asked me what should be done. This is what I said. Teach the kid. Ban the book(s). Spread the word. Write about it. Detect the publisher of the book. Wage a campaign. Stop using fairness products. Stop reading books and magazines that promote these values. Stop dressing your children like Elsa and Anna and White queens and princesses because they are eventually going to grow up with identity crisis. Be mindful of the language used in matrimonial ads and boycott ads that promote discrimination based on skin color. Stop aspiring for a light-skinned daughter/son-in-law. The possibilities are as endless as our imaginations and our intentions.

sunshine

Cold Treatment

March 4, 2009

I find most people’s behavior in the US to be exaggerated and  melodramatic to the extent that it almost becomes obnoxiously comical. Talk about how your stupid kitty gulped down a bunch of carpet fur and got sick, or about how the man you were dating ditched you, and women will grab their chest and make a contorted facial expression, almost sinking to the floor saying “Oooo I am sooo sorry”. I mean, what is there to be sorry about a fat stupid glutton kitty eating fur or about a screwed up man who decided not to waste your time? 

People will get melodramatic for things as trivial as you getting on the wrong bus or your morning alarm not going off. It is nyakamo in its own way- ask any Bengali if you don’t know the word, I couldn’t come up with an apt translation, ooo I am soooo sorry (clenching my chest). 

You must be wondering what pissed me all of a sudden about the mannerisms of people. The move and the weather took a toll on me, not to mention my office colleague who was suspiciously sneezing for a while, and I caught one of the nastiest cold I can remember ever since I came here. It started with a choked voice and relapsed to get back to full-fledged chest congestion, sneezing, and a terrible migraine. While it was still benign last week, I was making myself some tea in the office kitchen while I coughed. This alerted my colleague, who asked me if I was doing fine. Showing her the bunch of Kleenex tissues I was holding, I told her how I thought I might be coming down with cold. 

This woman immediately flung her hand in the air with all her melodrama, made a funny face (only she thought it was funny), and exclaimed- oooo stay away from me, I don’t want to catch it. 

In India, this would be considered condescending. You don’t want to show that you put your interest and well-being before the person who is ill, even if you feel that way. What I am used to hearing when coming with a cold is- ahaare bechaari, kheyal rakhish (poor thing, take care of yourself) and not something to the effect of what she said. I understand that it is infectious, yet the first thing I would get a cold, I would derive great comfort holding my mom’s hand and going to sleep. Here, people would put you in an isolation room, especially if you have just travelled and arrived from India. 

People think India is infested with lice and rats and mosquitoes and viruses. Some believe that there is an Asian version of every disease, which you get when you travel to or from Asia. Ever heard of Asian chicken pox or Asian dermatitis? It is ridiculous people should believe such diseases even exist. So I decided to stay home on sick leave and went back to office only when I was done with most part of the flu. I still made it a point to carry disposable Kleenex tissues and not the Indian-style handkerchief to blow my nose. I was weak, had a terrible headache, and didn’t look that good. Instead of applauding me for not staying home for something as trivial as a flu, the girls in office again started moving their limbs and contorting their faces in a way that it would seem they have been electrocuted. It’s not that I was rubbing shoulders with anyone. I quietly stayed in my room, occasionally going to the kitchen to grab some tea. People dropped by to see how I was doing, and when they saw me sniffle as if a toad was stuck in my nose, acted a false run as if a mad dog was released to bite them in their you-know-where. Ooo--- stay away from me, I don’t want to catch a cold and miss work. That is what they told me. Frustrated, I just continued to work. I hoped they would spare me the melodrama and leave me alone instead of making me feel I had some STD. I wondered which was it that caused me more headache, my flu, or the paranoid melodrama it caused. It seems people have no faith in immunity, or the healing power of the body. 

sunshine.

What’s In A Number?

I’ve been unable to write anything for a long time now. These days, I am all busy getting and setting things to see me in the US. This whole episode of making it to the US has been the cynosure of my thoughts of late. I can’t help but think of all the effort I’ve put up the last two years to shape up this dream of mine. For this was not something like one fine morning I decided to leave for the US, took GRE dates, cleared the exams and there, started packing my bags. This has been one of the most complicated phase of my life I have ever faced. My struggle with things started the day I applied for my passport. Ever since, I have been running around from pillar to post, with 6 hours of spine numbing study at the USEFI library everyday, knocking the office doors of my recommenders, getting dollar drafts done, sending courier posts worth thousands of rupees, and the rest of the time motivating myself to see me through the process. In brief, this particular dream has meant and cost a lot to me. Naturally, people sometime tend to get superstitious with stuff that matter a lot to them. Yet so many episodes the last few months have reiterated the fact again and again that superstition and baseless assumptions have got nothing to do with fate. What’s destined to happen will happen.

It started the day when mom asked me not to wear black.
It’s your TOEFL. Why do you want to wear black?

Oh ma, do you believe in all this?

No. But I don’t want things to go wrong for you.

Oh, don’t worry ma. Things would go fine anyway.

Somehow, I knew she was not happy with my sartorial tastes on the day of my examination. But some stubborn mulish genes in my chromosomes just wouldn’t let me change. It’s not that I had deliberately worn black. But once I did, I did not want to change just for some baseless superstition (superstitions were baseless anyway). My TOEFL scorecard with the haggard looking girl with haunted eyes and a black tee shirt staring back at me (yeah, that’s my snap on the scorecard, the exhausted look due to all that tension and sleepless nights) still makes me smile. The scores actually make me grin. As I said, it’s not in what you wear, but how you perform.

Now I’ll come to the main content of my post, that is, the various instances when numbers otherwise feared and apprehended have proven otherwise for me.

Episode 1

So when have you taken your dates for GRE?, a friend asked me.

The 17th of August, I said.

Ummm.... 17? Did you consult a numerologist before deciding?, she asked.

What? Are you crazy? Why would a numerologist decide on my examination date?

I chose the 17th simply because it’s a Wednesday and I want to watch the Chitrahaar peacefully, I wanted to tell her. But the days of Doordarshan have long evanesced, and it wouldn’t work. So I told her the simple truth.

It’s a randomly picked up date.

She stared at me as if she had seen a ghost.

But this is so important an exam. Even I have consulted a numerologist.

Good luck to you then, and may God help you, was all that I told her in my mind. I wondered if my scores could be influenced by the lame predictions of a fortuneteller.

Episode 2

I had applied to 13 schools in the US. My mom was not happy with that. The huge number of schools had nothing to do with her unhappiness. She wanted me to apply to either 12 schools or 14 schools.

Can’t you find another school where you can apply?

Oh mom I have gone through the research interests of all schools. There are no more to apply.

So why don’t you cancel one?
It took me a while to convince her that there was nothing unlucky in the number 13. It was all in the mind. But somehow, she wasn’t convinced.

One by one, the decisions were made. Those were the four most difficult and mentally torturing months of my life. Some schools accepted me while some rejected me. Some that accepted me with funding were not so good. Some that were very good didn’t fund me fully. Some asked me to wait while I made some wait. Overall, it was a mess. I’ve never felt more uncertain in life.

Then came the 13th reply that made my life. I had made it to the school of my dreams, with a great financial package. And a lovely city too. What more could I ask for?

This was the 13th reply I got. And I am definitely going there.

So you see, it’s not in the numbers. Things are achieved by sheer hard work and a little bit of luck, but never by superstition. All you need is a loads of positive attitude and confidence in your abilities.

sunshine.