Colour discrimination

The other day, my friend Jaya complained about her husband in her e-mail…a man who is after your womanly assets cannot be taken seriously…at this age I expect him to appreciate other assets…she wrote.

That set me thinking about my own predicament…how would she react if I were to tell her that not a day passes by without my husband not commenting upon my looks or rather the lack of it. I have the privilege of having been showered with original epithets as “dozaq ki hoor”, to the more common “bhootni.” Wait, there’s more…“dantu” or sometimes “kali mayya” too. I seriously think my husband should apply for copyright protection at least for the first coinage. To the best of my knowledge at least, no husband has ever addressed his wife in all such seriousness.

And to think he vigorously shook his head in approval the day he came to “see me”. Like any progressive minded, educated young girl I had vehemently refused to “dress up” for the occasion and my father had understandingly agreed…the only concession I made was to keep my long, black tresses loose upon his mother’s insistence…even though I protested before my parents I couldn’t argue with the lady when she requested me directly… perhaps she was aware of his fondness for long hair...

Anyway, I don’t know what clinched the issue in my favour…but approve of me he did that too with a broad grin stretching from one ear to the other.
I still had my own doubts. Of course I was educated, hailed from a decent family and was well brought up…(in spite of being ek-loti and not a bit pampered)…the glaring disparity was in our complexion…he was tall, fair and athletic (being a karate champ and cricket buff) and let me confess, I kind of liked his smile when he nodded his head to his mom. I was your girl-next-door plain Jane, of medium height and slim…yeah, I had real long hair (once the envy of my school boys…they took pride that I was their classmate and were more possessive about them than myself and even warned me against nurturing any ideas of subjecting them to the hair dresser’s scissors) and a charming smile that “lits up your face and the spirits of others around you!” as a cousin had once exulted.

My doubts were well placed because every Arif, Shad and Masood (Tom, Dick and Harry can go take a break) around me was hankering after a “tall, fair…girl” regardless of his own looks…

And here he was willingly giving me the thumbs up. “Is he out of his mind?” I wondered aloud before my parents. “Or is he under the impression that he is gonna dig into uncle Solomon’s mines once he marries me? If he does have such fanciful ideas, you better quell them right away, dad…or else he is gonna muddy his hands, face, body whatever and not come up with a single nickel. Wait, don’t tell me you have already pledged the house to him!”
My parents laughed away my skepticism and allayed all such fears assuring me that not all people craved for looks to the exclusion of other characteristics…(not that I did either, I always placed the mind before the face…but if the mind happened to be accompanied by a beautiful face, well, sone pe suhaga…qoobsoorti kise achi nahi lagti?)…that some consider the entire package, looks or no looks…and anyway…hamari beti hazaron may ek hai…qush qismat hoga who…God! when will parents stop looking at their kids with rose-tinted glasses, I muttered under my breath, prayed to Allah miya to let matters proceed if they would work in my favour and went to sleep…

…and woke up after the honeymoon. Till then, I had been his muse…perfect in mind and body…kya ladki diye aap mujhe, he had gushed to the delight of my parents and amma, yeh itni nazuk hai, haath chune dar lagta hai…before his mother, to my utter embarrassment…
Jab nasha aur qumaar utar ne laga, he frustratingly began questioning his mom again…kya amma, aap ne to kaha tha shaadi ke baad iska rang khul jayega…yeh to jaise ki waisi hai…
Even I had heard so much about so and so acquiring that certain glow after marriage…kya nikhar agaya tha, people would recall…but that nikhar has never graced my face…perhaps the fall out of scientific progression which prevents hormonal journey, if you know what I mean!

And so it has come to pass that my dear husband never misses a day for having to suffer life with me, his bhootni. I have even sensed many a time that he is hesitant to acknowledge me as his wife before his colleagues and friends. He has increasingly begun missing his girlfriend, who is happily married and away in Greece…the lucky girl doesn’t know to this day that he had a soft corner going for her or so he professes now. “If our wedding hadn’t materialized, I guess I would have expressed my feelings to her and proposed, the difference in our religion not withstanding” he told me once.
And know something? She is as dark as dark could be. But he has no objection…dil hai, kisi per bhi aa sakta hai…he reasons.

When I question him if his eyesight was weak when he saw and approved of me, he has the gall to say that it was all the handiwork of my mother’s choo-chaa! It is at times like this that I wish to strangle his now well-larded neck. Since I can’t possibly do that I retort that the only reason I married him was to have a better chance of having good-looking kids! (In case I haven’t told you all, I had given one look at his resume and placed it right back exactly where my dad had left it at my dressing table, with no comments.)

Now contrast this with the way I am treated at my workplace…
After seven years of marital amiss and two cute little girls I stepped out of the house to join the rat race and glean and polish my hitherto going to rust abilities and education.

I have discovered a whole new world out there, I tell you…it has done wonders for my self-esteem and boosted my confidence in myself and my abilities not to mention the financial independence that I now enjoy.
Fifty plus gentlemen walk up to me with a request if I may look into the papers and put them right…they greet me before I can wish them…they openly tell me that they wouldn’t entrust the assignment to anyone else and wouldn’t mind waiting for me to finish the work at hand and do it too. They are my seniors in every which way, but the respect they accord me is unbelievable…I thank Allah miya for this honour...

I started off with salwar kameezes for they are the most convenient and take the minimum time to get into. I had a hectic routine to follow initially so took a while to settle down and enjoy a relaxed pace. Till then my colleagues had no clue about my personal life except that I had resumed my career making a paradigm shift from being a lecturer in the past to the current, language editor. The first time I put on a sari, I inadvertently matched it with the mangal sutra…kaali pot…the ornamental black beaded indication that you are hooked and booked…

The guys were silently appreciative I could discern that much. No, I did not break any hearts, for the majority qualified as bacha log and the others were hooked and booked too. And the remaining few here and there didn’t matter really!

The girls? My, excitedly and unbelievingly they screamed, “You are married?!”
When I told them that I had two daughters as well, their eyes were ready to pop out of their sockets!
They proceeded to calculate my age and almost fainted.
They wanted to know the creams and lotions I used, the exercise I followed.
One even cheekily asked me, lady Gabbar like, “Kis girni (chakki) ka ata khati ho?!”

They were doubtful if they could emulate me at my age and even complained that I was giving them a complex. You see, they are all my juniors by a dozen odd years!

Those in my age group too have been magnanimous in their praise. Not a day passes by when they don’t compliment me for my dress/saree, dress sense, looks, style…

Initially, I thought they were either being simply polite or pulling my leg. With time as we became more familiar I expressed so and believe you me, they took offence!

They proceeded to tell me how they held me as a role model! For running such a hectic routine, taking care of thousand and odd things before making it to the office and looking good too!

Looking good? Now since when did I start looking good? That phrase was alien to my personal dictionary. I had to recheck its meaning so I blurted, “But, I am so dark and short…my nose is flat, the teeth are big, eyes are chunky, pimples have left craters at some places and guaranteed marks at others, so how can I look good?” (I rattled off my husband’s description forever ingrained in my memory).

And they thought I was out of my mind or something.
“So, do you necessarily have to have fair skin and prominent features to look good?” asked one.
“Isn’t that so?” I bleated.
“Not at all!” they cried in unison. “There are so many other things to like in a person. We like you for what you are.”
It was my turn to faint.

My husband had underplayed all my other capabilities along with my looks to such extreme that my self-confidence baro was at its nadir and I had lost the ability to recognise genuine praise leave alone underplay or overcome my manufacturing defects. It took these young girls and ladies to appreciate the real me…the so far (after marriage) buried Zaheda…if not beautiful, not ugly either but a simple soul really. One who had more to her than brown/black /yellow whatever skin…the person Zaheda, not just the face Zaheda.

So readers, now I have two personalities…now don’t get me wrong. By two personalities I don’t mean I have a split personality…just one at home and the other at the office…
While at office, I am happy, confident, full of beans…if I so much as pretend to be otherwise, my friends stop by to ask if something is wrong.
At home, I know what is coming even before my husband can open his mouth…
Before joining office I had stopped to stop by the mirror…or do something to the face that it reflected…

Now I dress up for myself the way I did before I knotted with miyaji.
The result is there for all to see.
Hubby maharaj wonders for whom I might be dressing up! He still thinks it wouldn’t make any difference anyway…
If only he knew!

The other day, my colleague asked me why I was looking particularly good that day.

I said the only reason could be that unlike the previous day, that morning I had come from my parent’s home!

Our guffaw was loud enough for boss to wonder what had become of us ladies!