Black or white matters...

 The other day I went to visit hospital as my brother is blessed with a baby boy. Indeed he is so charming and was sleeping peacefully when we visited. Vahini ( my sister in law) and her mom was there in the hospital. Everyone was complimenting the newborn...I was just looking at him and I couldn't take my eyes off. In the midst of all this, I heard the strange compliment. It was Vahini's mom who said " oh!! Thank Goodness! Look how fair his skin is!! After all that's what really matters." And the immediate thought that stroke my mind, while I was still looking at that cute Lil munchkin who has not even been properly welcomed in this new world, was being given a label of 'White' even before giving him his name, his identity for the life. Being a dusky brown girl always, this concept of black and white is not strange to me. After all, I had gone through this same thing for the past 20 years of my life. But I was stunned by the fact that today when we are heading toward the 50 years of this 21st century ,  everything is transforming, things are changing, mentalities are changing, a lot of voices are being raised on social media about racism, but still, we haven't even won  half of the battle yet. 

And this isn't the only incident that has made me realise the truth that a lot needs to be done to completely wipe out this evil of racism. A few months ago when I visited my village, we went to meet some relatives of us. I and my younger sister went there with a lady from the village as we were visiting after a very long time. So, we met on our way to a lot of people who had seen us as a child and were showing their love for us and their amazement about how we have grown up so fast. One of the old gentlewomen asked the lady who was with us " who are these girls? Whose daughters are these? They look new here!!" 

 The way that lady introduced us was very fascinating " oh!! These are the granddaughters of Mr Ramdaspant Thakare. ( my Aajoba), the one with a fair complexion is younger and the other dusky one is older." said she. I have never thought of this unusual way of introducing someone. I wasn't offended of course! But the fact that there are a lot of beautiful black ladies and men out there in the world who are still facing much worse than this... And why? because of their complexion, because they are bornt black, because black doesn't meet the beauty standards of certain people., Actually, It's not the fault of that lady or anyone with this mentality because somehow from the very birth it's instilled in our minds in many ways that White is beautiful, white is good...And Black is less beautiful and filthy... There's still a long way to go , efforts need to be taken especially for our generation to at least give a better world to our children...