Men and the Melanin Mess

The sun is beating down hard, and across the paddy fields a group of guys are soaked up in a game of snake&ladder, the huge mango tree along the dirt track provides them with that much needed respite from the late evening sun. I walk upto those 13-14 year old fellas and ask why they aern’t playin running and catching or hide and seek games that I used to indulge in when I was around their age. A young lad looks up from the board, points up and says “look at how hot it is, we are scared we would get tanned and chechi, the mallu sun-burned look is out!”. Now now now, I stood their shocked, when did the word ‘melanin’ take the fun out of young guys. That shock is what woke me up from my sleep, and the dream guys, was fostered by the recent SRK ad, where our dude with arithmetically correct ab's promotes a fairness cream sayin "gora banne kha instant blah blah (fuck knows what)". Well i would have loved to know what he said in that ad but i couldn't resist pressing that remote button.

On a recent visit to H&G with friends this cosmetic enlightment hit me on my face. As I was walking between the racks of soaps and creams and shampoos, a different variety of creams stopped me on my track, staring from the rack were a dozen or so pancy loooking men, with clear exfoliated face, shaped eyebrows and white bleached skin, and above their faces in white bold letters were written the words “Fairness Cream for men”. Going by the number of skin whitening creams on display and the sheer number of companies making these products I looked like indian men were considering this cosmetic wonder as the next best thing after Viagra! Whatever happened to the tall-dark-handsome look that sent girls crooning on their knees, i guess the likes of Dhoni and small B sure need to go someplace else.

I still remember my teenage years when we would sit oogling at the jungle wonder,Tarzan, his strong calloused hands, nice even sun-tan, unruly chest hair and unkempt hair could now be considered passe, whats in is the manicured-pedicured-exfoliated metro sexual male. Hah! I think this whole cosmetic enlightment among indian men started with our very own SRK bathing in a tub full of milk, with rose petals strewn in to create the atmosphere and clearly glowin in this new found skin, yeah yeah its the Lux Ad. This triggerd another series of Ad’s where men clearly conscious of their melanin infused skin goes snooping into his mothers or sisters closet to steal creams. Probably men were always conscious of their looks and these ad's are just fuelling that innate desire, the no of creams in the market should be an acting proof. Whatever it is the fairness cream companies are not complaining, for them things wouldn't have looked errr...fairer !