The Fair Maiden



“Mirror…Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” The witch asks her magical mirror and the magical mirror shows her Snow White, the beautiful princess said to have fair skin. We have all heard this fairy tale through our childhood and retell this to our girls, somehow ingraining in them that a fair skin is equivalent to beauty. Dusky or dark skin equals ugly.

Sometimes our obsession with fair skin goes beyond sanity; driving girls to use products that may not necessarily lighten your tan but lead to serious health issues. Cosmetic giants cash in on this madness and advertise their products, promising lighter, fairer skin and young girls in their quest to look more beautiful fall for it. Celebrities are only too happy to be paid huge sums to be the face of these products. It matters little to them that they can influence so many and that they may be misleading them. 

A recent advertisement for one such product shows a young girl so obsessed with not getting tanned, running along the shadow of a moving car and even hiding behind a lamp post. They then tell you that this is not necessary as the use of their cream will ‘heal’ (as if dark, tanned skin is a disease) your skin and make it fairer.
Draupadi, one of the strongest characters in Mythology, is described as dusky and beautiful. Most of our Bollywood heroines too fit this description but it doesn’t deter us from hunting for that perfect magical concoction that will make us ‘beautiful’ as in fair.  What is this obsession we have with fairness, I have never understood. If one were to scan the matrimonial columns, they will always start with ‘wanted fair, beautiful….” That is our yardstick. Fair = beautiful.

Society has laid such emphasis on a girl’s fair skin that everything else is relegated to the background. Every other merit the girl may possess is secondary to it. So much so that, you will find even girls who might go on adventurous holidays in the tropical sun will immediately look for ways and means to get rid of their tan as soon as they return home.


Is it ever going to be possible for us to let go of this bias and look at women without judging her for her complexion? Can we tell our children to look beyond the colour of the skin? We do not like the way, we get categorized as brown skinned by the westerners and yet we are the ones who are categorizing ourselves. Girls, be comfortable in your skin. It doesn’t matter what the color, you are only as beautiful as you think you are. Accept yourselves and others will accept you too. 

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