Why are we obsessed with fair skin?
Our obsession for fair skin has been around for centuries. In later interpretations of the varna system, during the time of Bhrigu, skin color became a distinguishing factor of caste. Brahmins were described as white-skinned, while Shudras were known to have dark skin. Though there is no evidence of skin color based discrimination by the Mughals, they were a homogeneous group of lighter-skinned rulers. So light skin became synonymous with the superiority of the rulers, which was strengthened by other conquerors like the Portuguese and the French.
But discrimination based on skin color became prominent during British rule. So called ‘Black Indians‘ were denied entry into restaurants and educational institutions. Though this formalized discrimination is a thing of past, still fair skin continues to be perceived as the marker of one’s social status for many.
Advertisements for beauty products claim to offer “lightening, brightening and glowing skin“, as something that would have an impact on one’s job prospects, status along with one’s appearance. Fairness creams are such a necessity that each year Indians spend more on fairness creams than they spend on tea. A survey found that 70 per cent of men believe that fair skin will give them an advantage over others in securing a job, success in an interview or finding a life partner. Indian movies too reinforce this notion. Fair-skinned actors often make their skin look darker with makeup while playing a lower class character. Offscreen dark skin or ‘kaala rang‘ is often regarded as dirty, ugly or poor adding layers to the insecurity related to dark skin color. All this fuels the desire to escape from the skin color people are born with. Women had reportedly boosts in confidence level when they lightened their skin color by two shades. This adds up to the individual and cultural obsession with ‘fair‘ skin.
The fact is that no amount of fairness creams or any other cosmetic can actually lighten the original color of one’s skin. So, instead of buying into this myth and continuing to perpetuate it, let’s go beyond dropping the ‘fair‘ in a fairness cream or just boldly claiming that black is beautiful. And attack the social conditioning which tells us that colorism is a ‘natural preference‘. Let’s reject this discriminatory mindset altogether.
There is nothing wrong with putting your happiness first. It’s SELF LOVE
em will go online. No one was prepared for this change completely but now it is the only option left for the people to choose.
Development of optical fiber technology is considered to be a major driver behind the information technology revolution and the tremendous progress on global telecommunications that has been witnessed in recent years. Fiber optics, from the point of view of telecommunication, is now almost taken for granted in view of its wide-ranging application as the most suitable singular transmission medium for voice, video, and data signals. Indeed, optical fibers have now penetrated virtually all segments of telecommunication networks, whether transoceanic, transcontinental, intercity, metro, access, campus, or on-premise. The first fiber optic telecom link went public in 1977. Since that time, growth in the lightwave communication industry until about 2000 has been indeed mind boggling. According to a Lucent technology report, in the late 1990s optical fibers were deployed at approximately 4800 km/hr, implying a total fiber length of almost three times around the globe each day until it slowed down when the information technology bubble burst! The Internet revolution and deregulation of the telecommunication sector from government controls, which took place almost globally in the recent past, have substantially contributed to this unprecedented growth within such a short time, which was rarely seen in any other technology.
An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber cable made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber and find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at higher bandwidths (data transfer rates) than electrical cables. Fibers are used instead of metal wires because signals travel along them with less loss; in addition, fibers are immune to electromagnetic interference, a problem from which metal wires suffer. Fibers are also used for illumination and imaging, and are often wrapped in bundles so they may be used to carry light into, or images out of confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are also used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors and fiber lasers. Being able to join optical fibers with low loss is important in fiber optic communication. This is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable and involves careful cleaving of the fibers, precise alignment of the fiber cores, and the coupling of these aligned cores. For applications that demand a permanent connection a fusion splice is common. In this technique, an electric arc is used to melt the ends of the fibers together. Another common technique is a mechanical splice, where the ends of the fibers are held in contact by mechanical force. Temporary or semi-permanent connections are made by means of specialized optical fiber connectors. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers is known as fiber optics. The term was coined by Indian-American physicist Narinder Singh Kapany, who is widely acknowledged as the father of fiber optics.
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