I took sabbatical from my blog. To find my voice…my blogging voice. I didn’t want to write until I had something to share. Well, I don’t mean that I didn’t have anything to say all this while, but here at Cookie Jar, I wanted things to be different. The posts I write must strike a deep chord within me. The opinions, thoughts and things that I type out for Cookie Jar must inspire me.
There are enough times when we talk for the
sake of social chit-chat and I find that that drains me out. So, at Cookie Jar
we’ll talk because an idea is interesting, inspiring, simple, happy,
energizing. Amen J
Having said that let me share what I’ve
been thinking. I’m in the midst of Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie. I like her prose, the way she weaves out her descriptions and unfurls
her story. The other thing I like about her prose is the way she chooses
luscious words to celebrate the colour of the skin. ‘The lush colour of
rain-drenched earth’, ‘mahogany’, ‘ebony’ – how beautifully she revels in the
elegance of dark skin. In a world, where light is favoured over dark, white
over shades of brown, it’s a delight to find prose, people and photographs that
celebrate dusky skin tones.
Photo credit: http://darkskinnedblackbeauty.tumblr.com via Pinterest
Photo credit: http://ani-n-i.tumblr.com via Pinterest
I’m an Indian and live in a country where
every citizen is some shade of brown. But unfortunately, it’s the ones with the
lightest of skin tones, who are considered good looking. As if, being fair is a
virtue. When we can celebrate burnished browns, we’re too busy paying homage to
fairness creams and the imaginary power of light-coloured skin.
Photo credit: http://zodwakumalo.wordpress.com
Photo credit: http://divalocity.tumblr.com
From chocolate to cappuccino, warm cocoa to
caramel, rain-drenched earth to mocha, there are so many shades of delicious
brown around us (what we know as 'Black' is actually a shade of rich brown). In no way are these any inferior to light brown, pink or
white. There is richness in the whole set of browns, each shade burnished and
beautiful. The question is when will we as people of this country, as citizens
of the world accept that skin colour is as individualistic as our DNA and
finger print? That skin tones are a result of how much melanin we’re born with?
That God created a whole gamut of skin tones like we created a whole set of
different colours to paint with? That each person is different and special in their
own way? That beauty is as much about dark brown as about light brown and
white?
hey Chandana, I second your thought and well presented.
ReplyDeleteThere is so much beauty in our colour and sad our people dont get that !
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Hey Anupama!
ReplyDeleteThanks for dropping by. Yes...it is sad that brown is not in, in our country! I wonder why the need for fairness creams!