Different Shades..................................................................................:

this is more of a question than an opinion..itd b nice if i cld get some responses too bad noone reads my blog..lol..anywys..i was just wondering...as a couloured people (to use a politically correct term) do any of u feel particularly disadvantaged..? lets forget economic development and colonial histories and things like that..the brits screwed us over n thats that...but as a new-generation indian, living in ur country or elsewhere...how important do u think ur colour is...? flip thru a magazine or watch a tv programme n ur bound to step over a couple of ads atleast for cosmetic products that supposedly make u fairer..most of my girlfriends moms pester them abt the importance of not going out in the sun or wearing colours that make them look fairer...i realize this is a personal issue but just how much of our aesthetic sense or ideal of beauty is defined by a post-colonial hangover? why the hullaboo abt being fair in a tropical country where sallow skin is but natural..a bit like supposedly jewish and carpenter jesus christ always being painted as an effeminate white man with etheral skin n flowing tresses...or the whole idea of mr. santa cluas from north pole so the roman catholic church could giv snow-crazy white kids something to relate to wt christianity -the white man wt gifts! but as rational liberated young minds how did v fall for it? as someone who has lived abroad, i admit (shamefully) that i have spent more than one gym hour wishing i werent so...so coloured..though i doubt id feel the same way now i wonder if v dont subconciously act along those pre-pubescent lines of thought..ok mebe we cn blame watching english televison on lack of good programmes in regional languages...western music on individual tastes..but how abt our tendency to sort of assume that anythng foreign is necessarily better..technologically, intellectually, culturally, in terms of 'coolness'? most of us dont even talk in out mother tongues..i hve very few close friends who handle thier mother tongues well..or claim not to be able to, i dont know...n surely, atleast once, v've all looked down on someone who cnt quite speak english wt the fluency we can..? but why, why does the english language or dressing like ur favourite rockstar make u better than somebdy who worships rajinikanth or reads tagore? do they not have the rights to individuality we demand? do they judge us too? im not blaming anyone seeing i am guilty as sin myself..but i cnt help wondering hw these things creeped into my system..i mean both my parents r very pro-mallu culture people..we've celebrated more onams than christmases..when did the rot set in..? is it really rot? do african people feel the same way abt thier blackness...? i think i started hating michael jackson wen he did his colour change thing..then he makes a song like 'black or white'! wt kind of an idea is being conveyed by a successful pop artist when he changes his skin colour the first million bucks he makes..? are v going to paint the sun n moon difrnt colours once nasa (there! why not an indian or egyptian scientist?) figures out how to...? im not sure; fair n lovely, anyone...?