Let’s play fair!

Being fair is a quality we all uphold and try to inculcate in ourselves. Don’t we? Fair in judgement, fair in evaluation, fair in treatment, fair as parents, fair as colleagues, fair as competitors; almost every role we play in our lives, we try to be fair.

Little wonder then, that this quality is upheld by so many. Many of us are fair but our looks give us away. Come on! How can a dark skin be fair? The promise has to match the performance, isn’t it? Which is why, I guess, the cosmetic industry makes fairness creams a dime a dozen.

Not that I meant to belittle the premium placed on skin fairness, but the sheer numbers that are driving the fairness industry make me roll my eyes. So far, fairness came with a gender-bias, but a few years ago, the men in their protest probably got the cosmetic industry to be fair to them as well.

Point taken; after all, why should men be dealt an unfair hand? They too should be given a fair treatment. And, lo and behold! The men have now got their fair share of happiness, with a fairness cream they can call their own, and not borrow the wife’s or sister’s cream.

If companies fought shy of competing in the fairness cream category, they made up for their weakness by adding a fairness component to almost everything that was applied on the skin – moisturiser, lotion, soap, talcum powder, roll-on deo, you name it and they had it.

As if the urban areas were not enough in wanting, the rural sisters came charging asking for their “fair share.” Sachets were introduced immediately so that our rural sisters could sample some fairness.

However, I often rue the fact, that all the efforts and hard work that the companies are putting in “to be fair” are only skin-deep.

How about going deeper?

How about a fairness pill? A pill a day, keeps the darkness away?!

Or better still, one that keeps the unfairness away?! Won’t this change the office atmosphere? Where bosses are fair and so are the employees? Imagine, every company could actually save millions on HR!

And then finally, there will come a moment, when we can actually dispel the dark clouds of gloom by just popping a “fairness” pill. Maybe we could then do away with psychiatrists completely.

We have a long way to go for sure. Because, there is a dark side to every story. And until we seriously look into the dark side, and do something about it, we won’t really “be fair!” Will we?

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