What color are you?

Pigeonholing is something we just love to do. Slot humankind into neat little categories. According to gender, race, color, capability(gifted, failure,loser),financial status, background, caste, creed- it goes on and on. We are not content until we have put everyone into pigeon holes. Today I'm going to deal with only one category. The color of your skin. 

Earlier it was the white race which dominated the world.They were thought to be automatically superior because of the color of their skin. Even today Indians cannot quite shake off their fascination for the white skinned. Then gradually other skins began to grow in prominence- oops other races, I mean. The olive skinned( largely Mediterranean and some European), the yellow skinned( Japanese, Chinese, South east Asians), the red skinned(The Red Indians), the brown skinned(Indians) and finally the black skinned(Africans). The world had very neatly been divided on basis of the color of skins. 

But consider the absolute contrariness of human nature. Perpetually dissatisfied with what we have; the whites were not happy with the way they looked. They set out to tan and broil themselves in the sun to turn their skins into shades of bronze, copper or if they got lucky with the melanin content in their skin, a deep brown. Sunbathing is THE most popular thing in the West. While what were those lucky people with brown or black skin doing? Bleaching the hell out of themselves. Wearing sunblocks. Using whitening creams by the gallons. Trying to get whiter and whiter day by day.( See that fair and lovely advertisement?) 

The marriage market demands fair beautiful girls or fair handsome men in India where arranged marriages are still the norm. I really wish the whites would consider doing a skin swap with the Indians. It would fulfill both their immediate desires- one to turn brown and the other to turn blindingly white. All without hours spent in the sun or buying dozens of skin whitening creams. 

What about the others? The olive skins or the yellow skins? What are their grouses? I don't know. Being an Indian I only know what our people want. But I'm sure being human they must have some. Dissatisfaction is the mantra of human nature no matter which part of the globe people might reside in. 

Whatever one might say the Indian reverence for fair or white skinned people is not likely to diminish in the near future. Nor is the Western obsession with tan. The only way out as I can see is a swap. Any takers?