What if one fine morning, we woke up to see a giant pimple on the face of the Taj? Would we spread a pimple pack on it? The glorious Taj Mahal- the greatest monument of love that a man has ever built for a woman is soon going to be seen with a face pack, oh no a body pack, to restore its original white splendour. A mixture of Fullers earth and Aluminium silicate is the fairness cream for the Taj. A kind of clay, this concoction will supposedly bring back the white shine to the yellowing symbol of love. My heart goes out to the fading Taj. Surely, neither the Taj nor love should fade. We need it all white and pure to keep our hopes alive. Hopes, not only of forever love, but of forever fair and glowing skin.
I am not a rascist. Nor a fairness activist. Only an amused spectator of the fairness craze that we Indians are obsessed with, so much so that we let a whole industry thrive on our madness. When I was much younger, miracle seven-day fairness creams were not available and pregnant mothers ate saffron in wholesale quantities to beget a fair child. I am told that when my orthodox great grandmother held the newborn me in her arms, she complimented my mother thus- “Nee Chamathu. Ponnai Segappaavum, Pillayai maa neramaavum pethurkaye?” Meaning, it was fine if a boy had a dusky complexion. But a girl had to be fair to be marketable for marriage. My great grandma clearly did not foresee the fairness epoch of today, that forces even men to be fair and handsome. Fair-therefore handsome.
As my mother was “chamathu “ and fair complexioned herself, I was born fair. So, I was not a victim of the fairness cream bug. But as a teenager, another bug bit me. It was the pimple pack bug. I would trade my right arm and left leg and even my first boyfriend if I could have a cream that gave me clear pimple–free skin. Acne vulgaris or the good old hideous pimples were casting their revolting effect over my teens.
My pimples had fantastic sense of timing. Though they were supposed to break out predominantly during the monthly menstrual period, they had an uncanny knack of erupting right before my date with the school hero. How they smelt that I had a date with the hero (who had finally asked me out after months of covert glances and dozens of not-so-accidental bumpings-into in the school corridors)—I could never fathom. Week after week, they would faithfully surface exactly 24 hours before my date.
When a pimple first appears on a face, it does look kind a cute. But I could never allow it to stay cute. I had to fiddle with it fanatically, torment it compulsively and finally burst it with a pin till it spewed pus all over. The result: the cute little pimple of the previous day would have turned into a bloody mess and the date with the hero—messier!
Determined to defeat the deadly disease that afflicted me, I would spend all my pocket money on every pimple pack advertised and every home remedy advocated. From oatmeal packs and retino A to multaani matti, besan, sandalwood, turmeric, kumkumaadhilepam and pimple-aadhi thailam, every pimple pack made in any part of the universe would be there with me factory fresh.
Having a doctor Dad did not help. In fact it added to my worry, as my Dad always told me the truth about pimples. According to him, “Only two things in the whole Universe were eternal and invincible. One was the Arctic snow and the other, Acne Vulgaris.” As the grief-stricken thirteen year old me would worry myself sick over a monster pimple that would have sprouted right in the middle of my nose, he would break my heart with this reality check.
When I implored him to be sensitive, he had presented me with a bottle of Gelusil. Assuring me that it was indeed the miracle drug of my dreams, he made me drink it once every morning and apply it on my face twice daily. Later on, after a couple of weeks of my religiously applying and drinking Gelusil alternately with no apparent relief, my Dad had the chutzpah to confess that he had played a prank on me. “ I cannot cure your acne, so I chose to treat your ulcer instead”, he said. Enraged, I waged a cold war on him for the next six months. I told him that he was a bad father and a worse doctor. Had he known about Fullers earth when I was 13, I would have filled the earth with it for my grandchildren to benefit. Had he prescribed me the blessed Aluminium Silicate which is now going to work the magic on the Taj, I would have surely gunned for Miss India.
As I write this, my wicked Dad reads over my shoulder and can’t stop laughing. I am irritated and hurt. How can he be insensitive enough to laugh about a subject that affected my teen psychology, I ask. In response, he reveals between howls of laughter that the notorious Gelusil which once caused a rift between father and daughter was composed of magnesium silicate, a sister compound of the magic aluminium silicate that I am now raving about. “Same clay. Different Name”, he shrugs. He also rubs in that, if only I had trusted his common sense seventeen years ago, I could have been happily married to the school hero now.
P.S : (Its a different story that I met the school hero alongwith his wife in an alumni party last year and she had an oh-so-big pimple on her forehead. Serves him just right for suggesting I apply Colgate toothpaste on my sore pimples!)
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