Honor- not color or physicality

Hello and good evening folks. Here I am back with yet another blog post, which touches upon yet another topic, a topic which deals with a phenomenon which takes place every day, yet goes un-noticed by most except some.

Like the tyrannical (or mythical, if you will) three headed Hydra demon who Hercules had been sent to slay, which kept on growing its heads every time Hercules cut one off, the evil which I am going to talk about keeps on rearing its ugly head every time someone tries to cut its own heads off.

Discrimination as a social habit has existed since the ancient times, since the time of princes and paupers. The nobles and people having royal blood prided themselves on the fact that they had royal blood in them, along with God-like physical features; such as an unusually fair skinned countenance, a tall, physically imposing body (though people were short as well, as exceptions have always existed since time immemorial) with good and accentuated musculature, with rather prominent biceps, triceps, pectorals etc and well proportioned limbs,  with piercing eyes and a long nose (okay, I freely admit to having pinched this description from the novels based on ancient India, and close to that time).

As a result, the populace who didn’t resemble (even if only slightly) the nobles or royals were snubbed as ‘common folk’ (because in their heads, the nobles considered only fairness to be the ideal or deciding factor for perceived, if not actual, nobility). However, as historical accounts recount, there were a few people who, despite being dark skinned, shone so brightly, that their skin color was far outweighed by their deeds, which forever immortalized them in the annals of our country’s glorious past.

For instance, the much celebrated author of the real life (yes, I know most of you will disagree with me) depiction of the battle between Lord Ram and the mighty scholar-warrior Raavan, his life before that and after, which gave birth to the perfect way of ruling an empire, or Ram-Rajya, (which is still considered a gem as far as kingship goes) who goes by the name Sage Valmiki was dark skinned (a fact which is not very well known). Now, does the majority of our population remember the great sage for his dark skin color or because he wrote the epic?

Then again, another eminent personality who is revered today and often called the Machiavelli of India, a person who is the author of the Arthashastra, the treatise on political methods and techniques of gaining and retaining power and science of finance, though, it focus more on politics. He goes by the name Chanakya, or the son of Chanak, who used to be a revered scholar in those times. He had two other names, Kautilya (the crooked one, as he was physically awkward gangly and awkward in his appearance with a broken set of teeth and a viciously pockmarked face) and Vishnugupta, which was his actual or original childhood name. Yet, he is no remembered because he was dark skinned. He is instead remembered as the author of the Arthashastra, one of the most famous alumni and subsequently professor of the much-celebrated Takshila University and the guru of Chandragupta Maurya, the forerunner of the Maurya (or peacock) dynasty, as it was the former’s machinations that led to the latter being able to sit on the throne of Magadh.

Queen Draupadi, of Mahabharata, was dark skinned too, and yet, she was beautiful and a very influential person (given that the entire war which took place between the Kauravas and Pandavas was because Dussashana tried to publicly sate his lust in court by trying to rob Draupadi of her dignity, and that too, when she was menstruating).

Shurpanakha, of the Ramayana, (ok, she might not exactly be famous, but she is known to most of us right?), who was Ravana’s sister and is more popularly (or not) known for her bewitching beauty and the fact that she had had her cut nose off by Lakshmana (brother of Lord Ram) because she tried to inappropriately ingratiate herself with Ram and deliberately tried to bump off Sita (wife of Lord Ram).

Therefore, what I am trying to say that the above personas I have described are not known for their skin color (except perhaps for the last one) but instead because of their deeds,, and what they did or their karma, which propelled them to fame and immortalized them in the annals of history.

And therefore, it is with great sadness that I bring before you all a rather sad and shocking truth today. Despite us living in the 21^st century, which is considered to be the century for advancement, we have people who discriminate between the ‘fair-skinned’ folk and the ‘dark or brown skinned’ people and place more emphasis on ‘fairness creams’ and ‘body lotions’ which clean skin pores and clean the face, rather than on personality traits which beautify the soul, which, if one carefully considers, is what makes a person truly immortal instead of physical beauty, which is temporal and corporeal, and therefore fleeting.

In today’s world, people have brown skin or burnished skin are told to apply fairness creams, fairness lotions, are made to apply countless fairness creams etc so that they look fair and physically beautiful (never mind their qualities) and matrimonial sites and matrimonial ads placed in the newspapers advertise requirements of ‘fair girls of so and so height’ etc.

Instead of looking at their sense of honor, which helps them (as well as the other people who are forced to live in this prejudice) fight and survive and make their mark in the world, we look instead at their corporeal frame, whose external appearance withers with time.

Nelson Mandela fought with and for the honor of his fellow countrymen, who, in the eyes of society, were ‘dark-skinned’.

Now tell me, all of you, irrespective of all of your faiths, the one common factor which links all of you is that you were all made by Him, right? So, tell me, if He did not discriminate between who was more beautiful and who was more socially acceptable while making us, then why should we, or indeed who are we to do the same?

Should we allow our color to define our actions or should we allow our sense of duty or honor to guide us?

As for the answer to the question posed by me above, I would like to tell all of you that all of you are free to answer my question in the comments section below. I do hope you reply.

Until then, have a good time all of you and goodnight. See you all in my next blog post.