Reality bites.....

This one is abt all these Big Brothers and Big Bosses!! The reality shows!!
Though i havent been watching TV since long now (not coz i have grown mature and feel its a waste... but coz of predominant mom power at home which makes our LG shuffle only between 'saloni ka safar', 'koshish ek aasha', 'kkusum','saans bahu' et al......) but the curiosity created by one of my friend made me watch atleast 1 episode of Big Boss as she relentlessly used to spend an hour daily on this reality show!
but ya...thanks to her i cld understand wat all this fuss was created by another show with the prefix "Big"...guess this prefix has something to do with the popularity of the show... or was it coz of our homegrown damsel...shilpa shetty??

Big Brother....It started off as just another series of a tired, flagging reality show and ended up becoming the most internationally criticised television show of its time.

When i was just discussing Big Boss with that friend of mine who created this curosity in me ...I heard about the new series of Celebrity Big Brother and frankly, couldn't have been less interested. Shilpa's entry however was surprising -- now that I am an Indian and witnessed the standard of living for the creme of society, the A and B list actors and the privacy within which they manage their lives and control their exposure to the masses -- and being locked up with the British Z list celebrity society with 24-hour surveillance was an interesting choice for her.

Ok now all this i have read in papers and websites. Just a brief for those who have been wise enough so far, not to waste time reading abt this reality show. After an initial altercation with Jackiey (who was referred to as a 'one armed lesbian'), resulting in her eviction, mouthy daughter Jade held Shilpa responsible. The gloves were definitely on and what followed was a most shocking display of modern day hatred, bullying and alleged racism. Jade attacked her for her colour -- attacking her for the country she came from, mocking her accent and not wanting to eat food she had cooked. In a defiant stand against racism the public showed their intolerance with a whopping 82% vote to rid Channel 4 of Jade Goody. (And not to miss out on mentioning abt this frnd of mine...she was equally interested in this another show and what all was said abt Shilpa and the media reactions...lol)

When i had thrown up this issue as an open discussion in front of few of my intelligent colleagues at PwC ( i generally dont have any views on these worldy topics... for me its just another serving to be laughed at and enjoy life), they came up with few school of thoughts. As per them, there are few Indians who are unperturbed by all this, choosing to believe that their perfect worlds cannot be tarnished by this ugly disease. There are others who accept that the price of living in the West would be racism and 'no pain, no gain.' Unfortunately for many Indians around the globe, their view of a racist Britain has been confirmed.

But i still think i do have my views on certain issues. So when they dont come up in the open house discussions...they do find the place in spaces like this. (ofcourse only since i have thought of penning down this blog...before that they were a perishable commodity). I feel there is a racism in each one of us. To start with, the advertisements that are flashing on Neo TV showing India-WI cricket match series... showing a black west indian guy running for help when he has been given spicey indian food and he is not offered a drop of water. The punchline reads -- its tough being a West Indian in India!!

Closer home, my sister used to be a big fan of fair n lovely. Now she is married with a baby gal...i am sure she wld turn Sia (my niece) into another fan of the cream. And when my mom alwaz says..., "gaura aur sundar baby hai".... why at all she has to append the sentence with the word "gaura"! ...she cld easily have done away with 'sundar'. and during my childhood she used to say, " nahaa le... fir gaura lagne lagega"... and now i think she cld have very well replaced the word 'fair' with 'clean'....guess the latter should be the only purpose of bathing. And i remember, myself applying ponds talcum powder on my face rather than the areas it is meant for....so that i cld look fairer!! and wld come out saying.... "look...how fair i am".

Perhaps mine is a racist family... but pls now dont start throwing stones at us...lol!! else i wld have to come up with that dialogue..."those who have glass houses, shldnt throw stone at others".

I can recall a funny incident at school. One of my friend (gaurav sharma aka ganja) had a fight with another classmates of ours (sandeep aka rambo).
"Rambo -- gaurav dont say this (something which i cant write here), warna mujhse bura koi nahi hoga.
Gaurav -- saale kaaliye coal mine.... tujhse bura koi ho bhi nahi sakta. joota dekh lo ya teri shakal dekh lo...ek hi baat hai."
I shldnt be laughing at this... but the spontaniety of gaurav made this as one of the funniest incidents at school. Though again it has its roots to racism!! (gaurav run... ppl are coming to throw stone at u after reading this...lol)
And when Mohit (another closest pal of mine) and me spots a dead black guy, we wld say... dekh rambo se bhi kaala ladka!! Now rambo is a benchmark of black color for us!!

And the 'last time' when Annie visited India (now dont get too excited annie, i was just abt to write that even if i wld have written that 'only time annie visited india'...wldnt really change the meaning of the sentence), aunty was trying her luck by saying... "shaadi kar le, gauri gauri bahu laaungi"... and i was just wondering wat if her face looks like lalita pawar!!! (aur agar gauri bahu hi chahiye to annie US mein hi select kar lega ;)...lol )

But then the fact remains...that we indians are fond of 'white skin'. Even i cant comment why coz honeslty, even for me the external beauty of women sums up to 'fair and lovely'. Its a long way we need to travel...lots of introspections...interactions....self-belief..... and a need to arrive at a time where we could redefine beauty.

Its time we should start identifying the white colour of 'brown sugar' and dusk colour of 'wheat'.

Its time we shld correct ourselves with the fascination towards white and realise that nothing is more beautiful than a "dark night"

Its time we should all understand the words -- beauty is skin deep......