The colorful variety

When I was pregnant, I asked my mom : " Ma , how do you think my baby will look?". She said : " However she looks, I hope she is healthy." I stared at her while I took my pregnant pause, trying to savor her words, surprised. As I thought to myself - my mom has finally given up her color bias and I cannot believe., her voice interrupted me : " .. and maybe she will have Srikanth's ( my husband) color". Aha!, now things are back normal. " Why ma, can she not have my skin color?" By then my mom has already gone to make me saffron milk ( Saffron apparently can go and polish your baby's color in the womb itself)

Where I come from, a person's color plays quite a big role , especially in the matrimonial market. When my parents were trying to give an Ad for me, they wanted to write : " Very Fair, Slim, tall, well educated female seeking..." . I confronted them one wrong wording at a time " Ma, I am not very fair, why do you say that? " " Priya, that is what everyone says. Very fair does not mean very fair" Uh really ? then what does it mean? I am the color of charcoal , but if you rub your eyes really hard and take a good look, I would be shining like moon!

My parents then agreed to take Very Fair off the table and put Fair instead!. NO i could not argue myself out of this, for it was supposedly the basic minimum requirement even for the newspaper to let your Ad pass through.
" Sir, you have not marked anything in the color column"
" Uh. yes we dint want to mention color"
" Sorry sir, its a compulsory box, I will just mark the default ( Fair) option for you"

This is also a common topic of conversation in our family circle. " When Priya was born, she was so pink and very very fair. What happened over the years?" As I look around the room, I can see some sad nods and a few sympathy clucks, but not a single fair skinned face. That is when I want to bring in a huge mirror and point out a factor called Genetics!. But that conversation would be so not worth it.
" paati, its in the genes"
" Really?See, that's why I told you not to wear those"

When my daughter was born , the first thing my mom told my mother-in-law was this : " Baby is of very good color". I am sure my mother-in-law had been praying coconuts to every God for 9 months to hear these same words! and I am quite positive she finally slept a whole 8 hours that night.

Recently my daughter's skin is getting darker and this is the constant worry between my parents on yahoo. My dad to me : " Amma says sonali looks darker than the snap you sent yesterday" " Appa, both were taken on the same day" " Oh oh, then maybe its the lighting, I will tell amma".
Next day : " Amma says she seems darker on the webcam too" " Yes pa, she is finally beginning to look like our family:) " Dad , clearly not happy with my answer " why don't you try some coconut oil? All the women in our family have used it and have gotten results?" REALLY? If that's true, can you imagine how my clan would have been earlier?

This obsession is not specific to my family and I know that for a fact!. My mom-in-law has told me this, only about a million times : " My son was called a pink baby and my daughter was a white baby". When I take a good look at my husband, she is quick to add : " He has been drinking too much coffee, so he has lost color on his face. But you should see him with his shirt off, his skin is the color of milk".

Well you should have mentioned this in your Matrimonial ad for your son : " 28 Yr old Male, fair with shirt on, white with shirt off, seeks an equally colorful female.......". You bet I would have responded, besides a few peacocks and parrots!