As per the conventional norms of the film industry a female has to be fair and not dark skinned, or if she is dark skinned then she needs to undergo transformation and become fair skinned. As a matter of fact there is a huge industry out there that thrives on the notion of fair skin, and even it has celebrity endorsements in the form of a Shah Rukh Khan advocating fair skin creams and it also is being done by a John Abraham as well. But thanks to the outreach of social media a wave has started building up all across the globe, especially among the Indians and more so from the female of the kind who have to face opprobrium owing to the color of the skin, and led by Nandita Das in India perhaps forcing the film industry to have a relook at its supposed preference for the fair skin.

If one were to go by the traditional paradigms which defined Indian beauty, the covenants underlined the fact that a beauty indeed is beauty in the real sense of terms if it has a pigment on the skin that has tones of darkness, as it gives an element of earthiness to the notion of the beauty. But the onslaughts of sustained media campaigns have made the argument stand on its head. May be it was to do with the fact that a whole bunch of products had to be sold off,but as a by-product it created a fault line in the society where those having skin of a darker shade were started being looked down upon. Was it a colonial hangup or what one does not know, but it really manifested itself in a big way during last two decades, and many a lives of girls were destroyed because of this stratification that was created by pure economics.

A case in point is Rekha. When she had made her debut she had the color of skin which was slightly on a darker side, and till MUQADDER KA SIKANDER Rekha was enchanting and bewitching in her original skin color, but she also had to undergo a transformation perhaps, to toe the undefined line propagated by the industry. Same happened with Smita Patil as well when she graduated from art films to the realm of commercial cinema.In the same manner a Bipasha Basu, who looked sultrier in her original skin color when she made her debut with RAAJ, or for that matter a Shilpa Shetty in BAAZIGAR and scores of subsequent films who looked earthy and ethereal when chose to become fair lost that element of “namak” in their beauty. Indeed, the “ namak” that defines the Indian beauty is a by-product of the color of the skin which tends to be slightly on a darker side.

Now that Nandita Das is leading this campaign, one only hopes that Divas of the likes of Bipasha, Shilpa etc., would join in and deal a deadly blow to the notions of beauty – which is primarily governed by the color of the skin and has become a dominating discourse in India. If it eventually happens, Mehmood indeed would bless from heaven, as he was amongst the first stars who had advocated about having a skin color which might be dark through the song- Hum Kale hain to kya hua dil waale hain- perhaps to underline the fact that notions of beauty are not dependent upon the color but the beauty of the heart. Scores of girls indeed would feel indebted to these stars for their life, who otherwise have an element of hesitancy in their persona owing to the color of skin that they have. Can we see a change on the anvil?