Life’s never fair enough

India is changing, we are told. (Courtesy today’s government, we are told that every eight minutes on radio with what seems to a never-ending campaign). But look around and you see it is true in some measure. Almost all of us have a phone. We do not demand for covers in rock shows. Heck, we’ve even sent our space shuttle and gotten our own GPS. One thing, however that refuses to change is our advertising. If Indian advertising is to be believed, Darwin had it wrong: “The fairest survive.” Not just survive, thrive. Somehow, in advertising, caste, creed, language, religion doesn’t matter — the only speed-breaker in the path of glory is your skin colour, the only deal-breaker is fairness. While foreigners sprawl on beach-recliners to get that all elusive tan, we have built ourselves a 2,500-crore industry of fairness products. (The numbers vary, of course.) But according to ads, fairness can get you anything.

In an age where we weigh our self-esteem and karma in likes and shares, instant-gratification is key. That’s why, creams guarantee you fairness in exactly seven days. Not less. Not more. No matter how dark you are it reduces the melanin content with ingredients that know they have only seven days to do it. Strangely, it is usually only girls who have a fairness problem at hand. Guys somehow do not need to get fairer (of course, Fair and Handsome thought otherwise, but that’s for later). It usually starts with the girl worried, pensive and full of self-doubt. It’s just not working out for her. Till she meets the seven day cream. Applies it. The ad has her show seven ascending expressions of happiness, each for the seven days. On the seventh day, of course, she is seen bounding with unmatched joy, ready to indulge in the seven deadly sins across the seven continents. She now has everything she ever wanted. This very girl, before using the cream was an underachiever, a loser, a loner and maybe even constipated. Clearly, beauty isn’t skin deep, it’s shallow. And so is happiness.

We’ve seen these ads for years now. She’s a dark girl who can’t land a job (again, guys seem to be sailing through interviews). She comes home depressed, wondering what’s wrong. As she sits lost, her mother, father, sister and friend gives her a fairness cream. The girl is desperate, though doubtful. But one assuring glance from the well wisher is all it takes for her to use it. She has a job to land, for god’s sake. She uses the cream. And it’s a miracle — her life starts changing — her dresses become brighter, her room is bigger, there is a spring in her step, the music changes to soft and happy, and it’s not even particularly sunny that day (though armed with the cream, she doesn’t seem like she cares). Skies clear. Flowers bloom. Somehow, everyone else chooses to wear dull greys while she stands out in pinks and reds. Miraculously, she manages to get an interview with the same company and this time gets the job. Why bother with degrees and recommendation letters. Colleges assuring campus placements are just probably going to distribute fairness creams on graduation day. Have fair skin; will give job.

Fairness ads border on the absurd. The latest one shows a dad suggesting marriage to his daughter first thing in the morning (that’s not the absurd part). Of course he’s a modern dad, he’s seeing possible matches on his iPad. The girl protests: she wants to do a job first. The dad asks, “Why He’s found her a surgeon, who is 6’2.” What else could she possibly want Have his children, already. The girl goes to meet her friend. “Mein job karna chahti hu” becomes “mein job karna chahti thi”. As luck would have it, her friend is much fairer (almost every fairness cream ad features a fairer friend who is carrying the fairness cream in her purse — as if they were just waiting to be asked). The friend astonishingly pulls out a fairness cream and while handing it to her says “kuch nahi kar sakti toh yeh le, shaadi kar le”. The girl has a very thoughtful, deep expression on her face like she remembered where she left her sunglasses on her last Manali trip. The girl grows fairer, starts wearing pink and tells her dad she’s ready to marry — but after three years — because she needs that time to match the boy’s qualifications — all spoken through subtly with a reference of height. A moment’s silence for feminism that died in 60 seconds.

But fairness is too boring. So advertising was given another task: to glam it up. And hired Yami Gautam to step up for it. At hand was fairness cream with a “make-upwala look”. It ended with walking the red carpet, of course. Why settle for just fairness when you can have the whole package (The debate of whether celebrities should be responsible for what they endorse hadn’t raged when this ad came around in 2015.)

But wait, today, men are proud feminists too. So how could they be behind And enter Sidharth Malhotra, who is dodging bullets on a film set. He, of course, gives the perfect take and flashes his range of four expressions. He notes that things have changed in Bollywood — it’s no longer the stuntman, but the hero who does the action himself. But, of course, your face pays the price sometimes. And hence there is Fair and Lovely with magnet action. (Strangely, the packaging is black.) They call it “fairness ka naya standard”.

Sadly, we’ll just have to wait a long time for advertising to raise its standards. Also, does anyone know how many fair scientists did the team that sent the shuttle in space have

The writer is an author, film writer and a Mumbaikar