Those Damned ‘Fair & Lovely Ads. Review on Fair & Lovely Cream

“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of us all?”

Not since the days of ‘Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs” have we seen so many women posing this question to their ‘not-so-fair’ reflections, on the small screen. For those of you who have missed all those mind-numbing commercials on the boob tube, read on for an idea about what some of them look like.

Ad no. 1: “Beta Ek Coffee Milega?”

Sequence 1: Begins with an old man heard complaining to his wife, “Kash hame ek beta hota.” (Wish we had a son) implying that having a son would allow him to sit back and enjoy a cup of coffee! Hearing this his dark complexioned pathetic wimp of a daughter runs to her room to make odd depressed faces at herself in the mirror.

Sequence 2: Depressed daughter finds magic potion (“Fair & Lovely”) and does a “ugly duckling turns into a swan” take! The results? She becomes an airhostess and takes her parents to a five-star restaurant for a cup of coffee!

Ad no. 2: “ Kundali Badal Gayee!”

Sequence 1: Anxious parents go through photographs of prospective bridegrooms for their daughter, who “unfortunately” happens to be “cursed” with a dark complexion. Finally a photograph of a stout, dark, older gentleman is pulled out with a comment like “Aise chehre ko to aisa hi ladka milega!” (Roughly translated: What else would you expect with a face like that).

Sequence 2: “Fair & Lovely” comes to the rescue again! Handsome (?) boy meets now-much-fairer girl and love at first sight follows amidst cries of “Kundali Badal Gayi!” (Roughly translated: Her fate has changed).

Ad no. 3: The latest to join the bandwagon, while advertising the fact that “F & L” is now available in sachets of Rs 5/-, this one is also supposed to tickle your funny bone (yeah right)!

Sequence 1: Apprehensive father (notice the common thread of ‘worried parents of ‘dark n’ ugly daughter,’ that runs through all these ads?) hoping that his daughter doesn’t have to join the long list of girls rejected by a boy with an apparent tendency to discard photographs of girls if he doesn’t like the way they look!

Sequence 2: Aw c’mon! I’m sure all of you know the scene by now! Yep! The 5 Rupee sachet of “F & L” rescues the proverbial damsel in distress once again! And we are subjected to a wedding scene with the bridegroom going gaga over the bride’s ‘nikhra hua” chehra (glowing face). God help us all!

What do these ads say about the Indian mentality? Where are the feminist organizations, which protest vehemently outside beauty contest venues now? Is the censor board ignoring these totally disgusting ads on purpose? Oh yes of course! One of these ads proudly boasts about having an Ayurvedic ingredient (Kumkumadi tailam)! Hmm…I guess that makes it all right then huh? After all Ayurveda is a “traditional Indian science” and we Indians are only given to protesting against western culture and trends, right?

Are we, as a people really that obsessed with a fair ‘peaches & cream’ complexion? The ads I have mentioned above are just some of the plethora of commercials that have flooded Indian television screens these days. Fairness creams, lotions, powders, and soaps too, are vying with one another to make their presence felt in the minds of the hapless consumers, who are sometimes only too willing to buy into the ‘fair is beautiful’ ideology they (notice how I said ‘they’ & not ‘I?’) are fed with.

And it’s not just Indian women who are falling prey to this fairness fixation. I have heard of (thankfully I DO NOT know) this 21year old man, an aspiring actor, who gives himself the ‘F & L’ treatment everyday! And yes, I have also heard snide remarks passed by ‘have-nothing-better-to-do’ Auntyjis & Unclejis too, at weddings and other family functions about how a certain Ms X was “so lucky she snagged a looker despite her dark skin!”

Wake up and smell the (very brown & oh-so delectable) coffee guys! Dusky skin is gorgeous skin. What’s more, besides being easy on the eye, it’s apparently healthier than fair skin! Yep, I’ve done my research on this. Statistics show that people with dark skin are less likely to suffer from skin cancer in the long run than their fairer counterparts. And there are some other benefits too, but you’ll have to do some net surfing of your own to find those! (Hey, I’m not presenting a paper here!)

These ‘lookist’ (yes Premjit, I borrowed the word from one of your reviews) advertisements bother me so much I would love to start an anti-fairness products campaign right now! But then, one look at the matrimonial ads in newspapers inviting alliances for “fair, good-looking…” girls / boys, and I wonder how deep-rooted this fascination really is.