Not fair, is it?

A new OTT show delves into Indian society's fixation with fairness and the unsettling consequences it may have for many

Have you ever attended a wedding or party and been greeted by relatives with concerned looks and questions about the dark colour of your skin? I have lost count of the number of Indians who have shared stories about being taunted for not having fair skin. Some have received unsolicited advice on how to lighten their skin by using ointments, avoiding the sun, and even abstaining from drinking tea.

The obsession with fairness in Indian society is explored in the second season of Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti’s OTT show, Made in Heaven, which is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. In the first episode, directed by Nitya Mehra and co-written by Alankrita Shrivastava, along with Akhtar and Kagti, we meet Sarina Kapoor (played by Zayn Marie Khan) who signs up for a skin-lightening treatment before her wedding. Her fiancé, Aman Batra (played by Rohan Gurbaxani), is upset when he hears that she is taking injections to look fairer in the wedding photographs. He loves her for who she is, and wishes that she would not subject herself to such torture.

It is perhaps easier to reprimand the bride’s mother for buying into a “racist mentality” than confront his own mother, who cannot hide her disappointment about the fact that her son rejected “four beautiful girls with milky white skin and big brown eyes” that she had chosen for him. She tries hard to convince herself that her son’s choice is also pretty and lovely.

In the show, the blame is shifted on to capitalism when the wedding planner, Karan Mehra (played by Arjun Mathur), talks about the high sales of fairness creams in India. The episode also alludes to the patriarchal mindset that places a premium on the bride’s appearance in the marriage market. While it is reasonable to question why companies are making and selling fairness creams, it is equally important to ask why there is a huge demand for such products in the first place.

As it turns out, the bride’s skin-lightening treatment does not go as planned. Her skin breaks out into rashes before her wedding day. She is heartbroken and anxious. The groom tells her, “Getting fairer won’t make you beautiful, Sarina. It’ll only make you fairer. And maybe not as hot. I don’t think you realise how sexy your skin is. You are the perfect caramel”. While it is affirming to have a partner who is not obsessed with fairness, the fact that being fair skin is still equated with beauty continues to take a heavy emotional toll on women.

The bride’s mother believes that wanting to be a few shades lighter is an understandable aspiration because there are instances of actors who have opted for such treatments. Perhaps she missed out on a music video titled “India’s Got Colour”, which came out in 2019. It shows several actors, including Nandita Das, Ratna Pathak Shah, Kanwaljeet Singh, Swara Bhasker, Vikrant Massey, Ali Fazal, Radhika Apte, Zoya Hussain, Suchitra Pillai, Divya Dutta, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Tillotama Shome, Sayani Gupta, Shashank Arora, and Amruta Subhash, speaking out against discrimination based on skin colour. The video uses rap as a medium of social commentary, and features rappers Mc Josh, Huma Sayyed, and Amogh Baini.

In the Indian context, the obsession with fairness is also entangled with casteism and colonialism. Made in Heaven does not delve into these aspects, but Yashraj Goswami’s book, Cockatoo, a new collection of short stories published by Pan Macmillan, makes an attempt.

One of the stories, titled “Shades of Love”, revolves around a woman named Harini Mittapally, who carries childhood trauma because of frequent remarks about the dark colour of her skin. She has vivid memories of an incident when she was 10 years old. Her class teacher told her mother, “Just massage the girl’s face with gaumootra (cow urine) for 15 minutes every morning. At night, apply a paste of pure cow-ghee and turmeric. And you’ll see the difference in a week.” Her classmates made her life miserable when they heard this. Moreover, she ended up believing that her mother too resented her for not being fair-skinned.

As an adult, when she marries Karthik Bhoopathy, she goes out of her way to make his life comfortable. She thinks that she needs to compensate for not being fair. She wants to prove that she is “a good daughter-in-law” and an “excellent wife”. Her husband wants to get a sperm donor as his low sperm motility keeps them from having a child four years after marriage.

She responds, saying, “You want me to carry the child of a random stranger? A person whose caste and gotra we don’t know! What if he’s not even Hindu!” After some persuasion from him, she insists on selecting a fair-skinned sperm donor so that her child is never shamed for being dark-skinned.

Insensitive remarks that masquerade as innocuous and well-meaning can inflict deep wounds that are difficult to recover from. It is high time that we as a society stopped being so shallow and unfair.