Did You Ever Love Me? by Rithvik Singh is a tender contemporary poetry collection about love, heartbreak, longing, self worth and learning to let go. Its greatest strength is emotional accessibility: Singh writes directly to readers who feel intensely and care deeply. The collection offers comfort without pretending heartbreak is simple, though its simplicity may occasionally feel familiar to seasoned poetry readers. Did you Ever Love Me? Have you ever loved someone so completely that, after they left, you were left wondering whether they had ever understood what they had been given? Not merely whether they loved you, but whether they ever noticed how much you loved them, how much patience you offered, how many small things you remembered, or how often you chose to stay when leaving might have been easier. There is a particular loneliness in that question because it rarely arrives at a dramatic moment. More often, it finds you while you are doing something completely ordinary. Yo...
As I walked towards the cosmetics counter, the girl behind the desk (trying to chipkaao something or the other) literally ran towards me and said "Ma'am ye product dekhiye- aapki skin type ke liye best hai, use to kar ke dekho- aapki sari tanning hat jayegi- Ma'am- take my word- laao main try karwati hoon aapko". She was trying to sell me a fairness product.
I mean what the hell!! I am simply in love with my complexion. I am thankful for being blessed with a perfect wheatish complexion and I have no intentions whatsoever to get gori or gorier. I have no personal grudges against these sales girls- they get paid for identifying the potential customers to buy their fairness enhancing products- they are doing what their job is. Neither do I curse these FMCG companies cuz I understand they are doing their business- they just hit the target right- minting money taking advantage of the firangi procreated complex in Indians regarding their complexions.
Gimme a break dude!! its been over 60 years they are gone from our country and we are no more blacks. We are Indians- and we look best wheatish.
Check out the most b'ful actresses in bollywood- Madhu Bala, Hema Malini, Rekha, Madhuri Dixit, Sonali Bendre, Rani Mukherjee, Bipasha Basu, Sushmita Sen- aint they lovely? And are they fair?? And those who want to argue about Katrina Kaif and Aishwarya Rai being Fair and Lovely, they are requested to give one serious thought on- do they look Indian enough?
Not just the organizations and their employees, this society of ours is full of people who are discriminating on the basis of complexion- specifically girls- darker girls are looked down upon- they are not perceived to be pretty. Everyone knows of the problems faced by their poor parents in getting them married. Several shows on the Indian prime time are showcasing the low about darker girls- I need not illume much on that.
What I fail to understand is, we live in Indian society, where more than 50 percent of people are on the wheatish side and very less fit in the category of gori or gora (and they do not satisfy the Indian beauty standards- at least in my opinion) and still we have to face such bullshit from one or the other person- I too have come across some real mean comments on my complexion when I actually do not fit in the category of Dark (No Offences Intended). I mean who says we do not practice Apartheid in India?
Okay, ask any Indian girl what qualities would they like in their partner- their instant reply would be- Tall, Dark, Handsome. When Men are desired to be darker, dont you understand this darkness cannot be subsided in coming generations- are you ready to mingle your Fairness with darkness? If yes, why do you bother being Fairer?
I don not understand why do people wan to be fairer? I myself have a few friends who are very conscious about their complexion and I guess they would have emptied about a tonn kilogram of fairness products till date on their faces and have try every possible way to get one shade fairer.. They would have applied every possible thing Freon the Daadi Maa Nuskha diary on their faces ranging from malai to a spice called Kalaunji, from milk to potato (I know of few as I have been un wantingly suggested many times).
Those Firangs, they ruled us for over 400 years, and we are still living the inferiority complexes they planted within our society to make themselves superior. Now those whites, allured with the darker shades, are spending millions of dollars and pounds on inventing technologies to get tans- they get expensive treatments for getting one shade darker and we are still wishing to be fairer..
I mean guys, Wake up!! 2008 is almost gone and we might be left with another 4 years to live on this planet - (if we believe the theory of 12 Dec 2012 :D), we got much more important things to do than to bother about being one shade lighter.
And as Michael Jackson puts it:
"You're thinkin' of
Being my brother
It don't matter if you're
Black or white
Ooh, ooh
Yea, yea, yea now
Ooh, ooh
Yea, yea, yea now
It's black, it's white
It's tough for you to get by
It's black , it's white, whoo
It's black, it's white
It's tough for you to get by
It's black , it's white, whoo"
"You're thinkin' of
Being my brother
It don't matter if you're
Black or white
Ooh, ooh
Yea, yea, yea now
Ooh, ooh
Yea, yea, yea now
It's black, it's white
It's tough for you to get by
It's black , it's white, whoo
It's black, it's white
It's tough for you to get by
It's black , it's white, whoo"
Picture courtesy (Googled): http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj9/s19m/black-and-white.jpg
This post also Available at: Bare Twaddle
Comments
but "Tall DARK and handsome" ??? its the same as wanting a fair girl dear ... the moment u bring color into the description it is apartheid .. hence, those girls are racist too .. no offence meant ...because it is no thing of greatness to like a darker woman or man ...
and why are you blaming the Brits for our woes ...? the traidition of mixing kesar in milk so tht the child may be fairer is milleniums old ..
Indians are racist .. infact most racist .... discrimination is based on color,religion,sex,language,region everywhere in the world ..and also in India... but we have another addition to it .. the caste system ... why ? is tht nt racist .. wanting only a brahmin guy for a brahmin girl ..
these are all verticals of the same horizontal dear ... and all we can do is not have them in our lives ...
nice one .. :)
Thank you for agreeing with me, I were rather expecting replies like "you dark toned girl- live with your love for darkness- let us be fiarer" :D
@ descrying the shadows
Foremost, Plz lemme know how do i address you, this shadows seems weird. :D
And I agree with everyword you have written here.
Tall, Dark and handsome is not my creterion, I have juz used it as an example over here yes I agree that is also an aspect of color discrimination.
And that kesar milk thing, I agree too, but Brits were the ones who added to this context seprating themselves from Indians on the color.
Yes we are big time racists, we practice discrimination I agree to that as well.
thanks for writing in..
Well i thought i'd make a couple of points to explain the behaviour of becoming more and more fair..
- Sadly enough current society doesnt believe in the concept of "beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder"
- that salesgirl was just doing her job as taught to her by the FMCG giants who only care about profits and money.
- India, like a large part of the world, wants to become westernized. After being ruled by the "whites" for 2 centuries i guess it'll take a little while for us to get adjusted and start thinking on our own terms.
Sid's wrong on 2 points:
- we definitely can put a lot of blame on the Brits. They deserve more than blame tho...
- India has definitely been very racist but we have never been racist on grounds of color.. and we were very tolerant earlier.. its becoz of the Brits and their divide and rule that we have becum what we are now.. & Brits and Americans have been far worse than us... remember the supression of the blacks?
All in all a very nice post :)
I am very glad u liked the post :)