Big Bother

So Shilpa Shetty finally won Celebrity Big Brother. Honestly, I'm a little surprised. If she had to be on an Indian version of CBB alongside Indian telly celebrities, she probably would have lost. She's never been a big star in India, but has a reasonable number of fans who either admire her for her dancing skills or her curvaceous body.

I haven't watched CBB and do not know how events unfolded on the programme. As an Indian however I am surprised at the level of agitation the whole racism issue generated in India. My country is one where racism and caste-ism thrives till date. People are always discriminated based on colour, religion and beliefs. If you ever happen to go through matrimonial classifieds in India's biggest newspaper 'The Times of India' or ever any small daily, it will read something like this - 'Wanted fair, beautiful, homely (xyz caste) girl for qualified, well settled boy earning in double digits. Contact Box No...' Only a very few conscientious Indians can overlook colour or caste while seeking suitable alliances. Or else they overlook it just because they have no choice. Sadly enough, beauty and cosmetic companies thrive on these fallacies. Though the India's 'aam junta' - the common man - burnt banners of Jade Goody, Unilevers banners are still intact. Commercials of 'Fair and Lovely' a skin lightening cream manufactured by Unilever propogates that fairer women get boyfriends, jobs, basically everything; while darker women are rejected. So deep has this fear setlled in the mind of the Indian woman and man(!) that the fairness industry accounts for 60 percent of skincare sales in India. [1]

The Indian government criticised Channel 4 and condemned Goody's racist attitude. But "How can we say to our brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when, the log is in our own eye?"

I am slightly over whelmed by some Brits genuine horror over the racist row and the resulting support for Shilpa - it is very kind. Although I really don't care about CBB or even Shilpa winning, I think she summed it up perfectly at the end of the show. We're all fallible. And we have no right to point fingers at anyone. Not even at hoodies. Or veils.