“May we take a picture with you?”
The question is innocuous enough, but the phenomenon is intriguing.
At almost all of the tourist sites we’ve visited in India we’ve been asked to pose for a shot with the family. Obligingly, we smile and stand. This has happened everywhere: in Kolkata, UP, Delhi, Agra, etc.
At first, I thought it was because we were foreigners, but then I began to notice which foreigners we’re being chosen for the family photo album. And after six weeks in India I can say with a fair degree of confidence - only the white ones.
There are plenty of East Asian tourists in India - of every age and level of attractiveness, but I have never seen a single one asked to pose for a photo as we, and other white tourists, continually are.
There’s something bizarre going on here. I don’t pretend to understand how fair skin relates to caste, class and sect in India, but I have seen how much it is prized here. How many of the media outlets comment on the fairness of this Bollywood actress or actor. There is even a brand of skin lightening cream, “Fair and Lovely,” that promises to lighten your skin by two shades in only two weeks. The advertisements show a woman removing darker layers of skin as if they were a mask to reveal her truer, fairer self.
I don’t know why fairness is so prized here; i do know, however, that I have never been so conscious of my skin color, and never thought of myself as so white.
11 July 2008 at 9:50 pm
Dude, same as in China. In China at least, it’s because whiteness of skin implies wealth cause you ain’t under the sun toiling on the land. In the West though, being darker means you’re probably out vacationing more, and therefore darkness = wealth.
It’s ironic though, in the States we see all these commercials for tanning lotions that will turn you more orange than dark (maybe we’ll start prizing orange skin?) and in China, I see all this stuff that will bleach your skin.
Regardless, it must be said:
Thanks for being so deep about skin, Yousef. Don’t worry, I don’t think of you as just skin deep.
budum ch