~ Seal of approval ~

Last week I saw people sharing an article about an American student's experience in India across Social Media. 

Today another student has expressed her experience during her stay in India.

Am sure anyone on travelling or studying or working in India will have perspectives about the country, culture, people, food, history, et al. Each one goes through different experiences - good, bad & ugly. The perspectives about an experience could be based on various factors - family upbringing, economical status of the individual, knowledge about place, food, people, etc. It varies on many degrees. Its not WYSIWYG.

Am sure, as Indians, we ourselves are highly opinionated about people from different parts of a State. Forget about our perspectives with people / culture from various parts of India. So, our perspective about foreigners would be a very skewed. 

I don't really understand the need of such hype or stereotype the subject. I feel, we don't need Western review to highlight the lows or the highs of the country. Most of us, Indians, are already aware of the circumstances & behaviour. Be it treating women / men / elders / disabled, race, cultures, etc. We do nothing about it to bring any change in self or those around us. 

As M K Gandhi said, "Be the Change you wish to see in the World". We need to drive that change what we wish to see in the world around us. Do your bit, before stereotyping / preaching others.

Over the weekend, while at traffic signal near SadhashivNagar, observed a hoarding which says something like this - "Learn yoga from Internationally certified yoga teacher". Do you figure oxymoron in it? Yoga & International :) 

Yoga, which has its origin in this country, we Indians still look for the seal of approval from elsewhere. 

Such is our obsession with Western approval for the scheme of things in life or otherwise. We need to stop looking elsewhere for doing what is right. Just do it!

*iReport is running on Jive. Jive is a collaborative product. In my previous job, have helped build customized enterprise communities. The technologist in me makes me observe the underlying platform :)

~ Dark is beautiful ~

If you have watched any Indian TV channel then you would have come across the plethora of fairness ads targeting women & these days men too. Even after 66 years after obtaining Independence from the British rule, Indians are fascinated & obsessed with everything white. We haven't really come out of the colonial mindset. 

Finally there has been an initiative called "Dark is beautiful" from the group Women of Worth.

Dark is Beautiful is an awareness campaign that seeks to draw attention to the unjust effects of skin colour bias as well as to celebrate the beauty and diversity of all skin tones.

Good to see Nandita Das giving her voice to the cause. 

~ "I want people to be comfortable in their own skin and realise that there is more to life than skin colour," she says, adding that an Indian paper had written "about my support for the campaign and then lightened the photo of me that went alongside it" ~

"India's obsession with fair skin is well documented: in 1978, Unilever launched Fair & Lovely cream, which has subsequently spawned numerous whitening face cleansers, shower gels and even vaginal washes that claim to lighten the surrounding skin. In 2010, India's whitening-cream market was worth $432m, according to a report by market researchers ACNielsen, and was growing at 18% per year. Last year, Indians reportedly consumed 233 tonnes of skin-whitening products, spending more money on them than on Coca-Cola."

If you are obsessed with fair-skin then you are spending too much time & energy on something which is not worthwhile. There is much to life than sporting fair skin or applying fairness cream to get there.

Stay UNfair and live your life!

Additional Reading: India's unfair obsession with lighter skin | Dark is Beautiful | FB group