I lost out on foreign projects since ‘I’m too fair’: Saumya
The debate around discrimination on the basis of colour has been revived again, after two multinational companies announced their decision to drop the use of words such as ‘fair’ and ‘whitening’ from their beauty products. And actor Saumya Tandon is very happy.
“You can call someone fair or not fair, that is fine. People calling me ‘fair’ is not an abuse, neither am I apologetic about it. I just want to say every colour is beautiful. But unfortunately, the conditioning in our society is such that they associate the word ‘lovely’ with fair. That means, they feel only girls who are fair, are lovely, which is not the right notion,” she says.
However, Tandon, too, had to face a bias due to her fair complexion. “I lost out on a lot of work because they said ‘she is too fair’, and abroad, they perceive an Indian girl to be ‘brown’. It’s so stereotypical. They will not accept any other colour. No wonder that 99% Indian origin actors are shown as brown in projects abroad.” she says. In fact, she adds that recently, there was an international film, which she lost out on because another girl, who was not fair, got the part. Tandon adds that she would tell the casting directors in the West that India has people of all complexions.
“A lot of photographers like dark-skinned models because somehow, they feel they are more exotic, or they are going to be better for a saree or jewellery ad because Indian-ness, in their head, is brown. That is not fair to girls like us. What about girls from Kashmir, Punjab, they are fair, don’t you call them Indian?,” she asks.
On her comedy show Tandon, 35, is frequently called ‘gori mem’ (fair lady). Does she feel that, she too, at some point, is classified based on her skin colour? She says she doesn’t. “I don’t think of it as an abuse, as long as they are not saying we will prefer you because you are gori. This is how God made me,” she signs off.