Comments on: Culture Kotudhu 3

By: yaadayaada

yaadayaada — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:54:22 +0000

Just saw the commercials! And my answer!! (Can you hear the retching sound?)

By: MiM

MiM — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 07:07:15 +0000

in their few weeks in chennai, at their grandparents (aka my parents) place they watch one year’s worth of junk, have free access to itabs and ipads and play angry birds/pigs/ ninja rush, and can eat cookies on demand (or not too)…

and i tell you from experience:

that it’s a one way street: and there is no unlearning to that crap.

you think that mamma’s explanation (pooh pooh that thought right here) convince a tiny girl who has been sold a Rs. 20 lakh beautifully-crafted pixie dusted commercial???

By: Kumari

Kumari — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:16:01 +0000

M’s best friend in school is an American and for sometime she kept asking me why she was brown and not white. My husband and i, after discussing with her school teacher, gave the same answer that since we come from India and it is hot there we have dark skin. Then another Indian kid came on a playdate and M remarked how they both were brown skinned since they were Indians and her 5-yr old friend said, ” No i am not brown. I am wheatish” My only thought was since when did kids know there is ‘wheatish complexion’?

Sometimes I wonder if the ‘need to be fair’ is so ingrained in our society that we can never escape it wherever we go.

By: Preeti

Preeti — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 06:13:12 +0000

My mom has not missed one single opportunity until now to tell me that I am dark… and she even rues the fact that my daughter is as dark as me while she is fair… So well, when you have your own parents saying such things to you… no wonder that fairness cream companies have a field day.

Oh and btw… in that ad, she says ” I did a skin analysis and was shocked. There were signs of aging….”

By: maheswari

maheswari — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 09:07:48 +0000

My son who is 3.3yrs old asked me pointing to a girl, didnt she take bath, she is black in color.I was shocked to hear that ,looks like my mil has told him u will become white only if u take bath,sometimes unintentionally they instill all these thinking in children, then i told him bath is meant for cleaning oneself and not for color and also it doesnt matter,i was little bit concerned, i certainly dont want him to look down at dark/brown skin.

By: Gayatri

Gayatri — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 09:50:29 +0000

Currently facing the same situation because couple of child’s friends refused to play with him because of his colour (in pre-school 4yrs age!). I’ve been trying to get him to understand colour differences with various books like the Sesame street one and Mem fox one etc. When I tried to explain that “fair” skin does not make one superior, he did not take the explanation as I’m anyway dark-skinned (i’m stupid anyway, according to his friends’s logic).

By: Ranjani

Ranjani — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 06:47:08 +0000

So agree with the ad world nonsense. Questions like these come up from my daughter too…and I think the number of advertisements for all skin related so called “issues” seem to be touching a crazy number and truly scary considering the effect they have on impressionable minds.

By: Divya

Divya — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:30:46 +0000

Thats a wonderful post!!
Even I faced the same problem ,when we were in Switzerland,my son used to compare himself with white skin.
Now back to India ,he is happy that he could find more Brown skin people around, …
Nice reading ur blog,but this is the first time Iam commenting here.
Divya

By: yaadayaada

yaadayaada — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 04:58:24 +0000

Come back come back!! I will keep finding every little reason for you to come back!!

Kidding aside, how did we survive the fair n lovely growing up!! I am sure the kids would take similar way!! They will be fine!!