My Marriage Was Almost Fixed But That Day My Dad Became My Superhero…

As far as I can trace back my memory, it dawned on me the day when one of my cousins just happened to comment about our appearance. We are three daughters to my mom and dad. The cousin, barely my age then- about nine I think- had intelligently contrasted between the three daughters by giving us titles: the sumo wrestler, the African and the American – respectively meaning: fat, dark and fair.

 
My elder sister shed off her kilos in her early twenties, about 6 years ago and my younger one, now in her teens, is learning to live with people bullying her about her height. And in the meantime, I, have aged with my darker shade. Stories and confessions about being dark and how the Indian society is terribly discriminatory when it comes to ‘beauty standards’ is nothing new. But as I read a story on akkarbakkar written by a ‘fairer’ sister about how her ‘darker’ sister was rejected 5 times for marriage, I felt the urge to narrate a story too. This, but, is not about me. This, is about a wonderful day .

24 years into life with about 20 years of memory back-up, I had been equipped with enough arms to tackle situations where my skin shade would be a topic for comment or worse, discussion. The greatest problem I faced as a dark-child was to choose the ‘right’ colour of dress. As a child, that is a lot – because when you want to wear your favourite colours, and when you wear them, you are always ‘advised’ by very ‘well-meaning people’ outside your parents. What used to disturb me more as a child was a Malayalam proverb which could be translated as “Black is seven times beautiful”. As a teenager it used to annoy me as to why did dark people need reinforcement that their shade of skin is ‘seven times beautiful’? Straightforward ridicule or back-door sympathy, ‘difference’ and ‘discrimination’ cried out loud from them.

Apart from the story I mentioned about earlier, there’s one more reason for me to write this down: my four-year-old nephew, who is literally the salt to my life. He recently commented about my feet: “you’re so black”, only to be nicely handled by my elder sister without rebuking him yet teaching him subtly that the comment was not appreciable, and why.

The wonderful day- when the entire family (my parents, my sisters, my bro-in-law and myself) were waiting for a call from a prospective groom’s father. The cell-phone rang and my dad was on it. Everything was good and gay until the father wanted to speak to me. He asked me about my goal in life and soon after I talked about it with great enthusiasm, he wanted me to ‘know’ something. As I encouraged him further, he, with the urge to let me know something went on about how since I’m so very educated (pursuing research in humanities), I should never let the ‘fact’ that I’m shades darker than his son be a matter of concern for my self-esteem and confidence. He reminded me about how God creates people in different shapes, sizes and shades. He even said we had no say in it, it was God’s Will (well I wanted to say: we do have a say– at least people like him did – to create a favourable gene pool by marrying ‘fairer’ people to ‘even fairer’ people who have genealogies with no dark member, EVER.). He assured me (I was being assured for the first time by a stranger in my 24 years of existence) that what mattered was my personality. I only remained quiet at this, because I couldn’t believe how he could not see that my skin colour WAS, in fact, a part of my so-called ‘personality’. I need to remind you dear reader, that all this ‘reassuring talk’ came after the family gave a ‘positive’ reply. After so much talk, he wanted to speak to my dad and unluckily for that man, he said the same things he told me to my dad too. The talk that followed made me want to scream to the world how lucky I was.

My dad began listening at first and then this is what he replied:

“Firstly, as far as my family is concerned, colour of skin has never been a parameter for beauty standards.
Secondly, as far as my daughter is concerned, she’s one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever come across: physically and intellectually- in terms of the way she deals with life and the passion with which she does her stuff. I would like to remind you, Sir, that it is YOU who have reminded us that the shade of skin is a matter of concern. It wouldn’t have occurred to us otherwise. Shall inform you our decision in a week.
Take care.”

The phone call ended there and a week later, my Super-Hero rejected the proposal on the same grounds- for considering shade of skin as a parameter for beauty standards. This incident might not seem as dramatic or out-rightly discriminatory for some of you. It might even seem ‘unfair’ on my Super-Hero’s part to have ‘judged’ them unjustly for only ‘preparing me for a bad world’. But hey, here’s the deal: I’m part of that very bad world of which you too are a part.

And I’m deeply dark. But who’s UNFAIR, you or me?