What does it mean to get tanned when you’re brown to begin with? This is a question particular in some ways to South Asians living in northern countries — where you don’t get much exposure to sunlight much of the year, and where you are surrounded by friends and colleagues who do take pride in “getting a tan.” (In India, home of “Fair and Lovely” ointments, there is no culture of tanning.)
This came up for me because I recently went on a short vacation with my family in the Caribbean. We went to the north coast of the Dominican Republic (a major tourist destination, I know). We rented a small villa near, but not in, one of the massive resorts that dominate the “Silver Coast.” Quite nice, overall, and restful.
I didn’t actively seek to get a tan, but I definitely came back a lot darker than I was when we left. My wife also got quite dark, and even my 18 month old son got a bit darker, though we were careful to keep his delicate skin protected wherever possible from direct sunlight.
Now, I generally like getting a bit tan — it seems to bring out some rich orange tones in my “brown” complexion. And I’m certainly not one of those people who would ever say that fairer skin is more appealing than darker skin. There are many different ways of being beautiful, and I find the desi obsession with skin tone (especially as it indexes with the matrimonials culture) tedious and embarrassing. (And sometimes tragic, as in this recent story posted on the News Tab)
Nor is it the case that getting tanned is new to me: living on the east coast of the U.S., one generally finds one’s skin tone in August to be a few shades darker than it was in May, even if you’re one of those people who tends to hide indoors in front of books and/or a computer 95% of the time.
But here’s the odd part. On occasion, over the past couple of days since coming back, I’ve found myself feeling slightly embarrassed to be so tan — as if part of me is thinking, “wait, everyone, this isn’t my normal skin tone!” And then I’m immediately embarrassed to be embarrassed — because what the initial embarrassment perhaps reveals is an unconscious skin tone bias that comes out if and when one’s skin tone does in fact become darker. (More forgivingly, it might simply be that one is always embarrassed to look a little different from how one normally looks.)
Has anyone else ever been embarrassed to be tan? Or conversely, are there desi readers who particularly enjoy seeing their skin get tanned?
Embarassed to be tanned? No. Funny, yes.
It takes a moment to glance at the mirror and figure out it’s you, and the above line perfectly sums it up….
Amardeep, I agree everyone looks better tanned. No matter how much darker you get, you also get a glow. I think there might be two parts to this dark skin issue with Indians. In south where I was born, it is better to be light skinned but a guy or girl with more perfect features will be considered more beautiful. But with the north indians i meet, its always only fair is beautiful. It became obvious to me a few weeks ago. Two of my husband’s friends married recently. One, an abcd gujju, married a dark brown gujju girl with the most amazing eyes, arching eyebrows and aishwarya rai lips(according to my husband). The other friend, a middle easterner, married a girl from his home, who was very ordinary looking but very fair. My husband and I were amazed…guess who our north indians were gushing over?
I know exactly what you mean about being embarrassed about being embarrassed of getting too tanned. Being Punjabi, while growing up I could not get away from the belief that fair is beautiful. Over time I have moved away from that and now find dark complexions quite beautiful – I believe it imparts a character to ones complexion which being fair does not. But at times I have found a conflict between my current beliefs and the beliefs that I had while growing up thanks to my environment and when I find a conflict between the two, I find it embarrassing.
Really dark-skinned and love it. Back home (think Chennai), the sun just made me dark (think burnt sienna) and my mother would schedule me around the harshest rays (10 am – 2 pm). But getting a tan here, on the east coast, turns me orangey/golden and is quite glowy.
Please tell me i’m not the only dark-skinned south asian grateful for the way dark skin hides a multitude of skin flaws and gives your limbs a skinny look?
Amardeep, i too tend to think that your embarrassment is mostly because of looking different–a sense of alienation from the way you usually look. I experienced that myself when I had my hair permed–I yearned for curly hair, but didn’t quite feel like myself once I had it.
I don’t usually get tan b/c I’m very much an indoors girl. But I do have to say that I HATE the desi obsession with skin color. That sometimes makes me embarrassed.
Amardeep, I went to Barbados one year just one week before an India trip. I was so careful to avoid the sun IN BARBADOS so that when I went to India a week later my relatives and other assorted people wouldn’t find me dark. Normally in Barbados I’d be out on the beach, in the water, etc. but on that trip I stayed in the shade and in the hotel. Drove my friends nuts. Still had fun at night in the clubs though.
I’m someone who can go from light brown (my winter shade) to deep dark brown (if I hang out in the sun) very quickly.
Interesting post. I am a desi who loves being tan. I think I look healthier, more vibrant and generally better looking (as I write this I wonder if I’m a little vain). I am pretty fair, so when I do see my parents’ friends during the summer months, I am often treated to “What happened? Have you lost your color?!” As if something truly horrific happened to me. I, too, find the entire phenomenon more than a little embarrassing.
“…Apparently your skin’s been kissed by the sun, it makes me wanna hershey’s kiss your licorice…”
I have a lot of friends (non desi and desi) who love to get a tan and so in the summer months i do find myself on the beaches or at BBQ’s enjoying the sun.
I don’t particulary care for what people think of my skin tone as i’m natirally fair and my tan is more of a glow that seems obvious to me it’s a ‘tan’. However the year i got married i was told by some family and friends to avoid the sun, and not to get a tan for the wedding pics and i found this was common amongst many other friends so yes parts of the community / desi society still has a major issue with skin colour and it’s such a shame.
Amardeep, Tanning stories? The day after the Pulitzers were announced ?
😉
I love getting a tan. It does, as you say, bring out the more golden-orange tones in my skin, far preferable to the yellow-and-blue tints which usually dominate in the wintertime. On the down side, the heat does dreadful things to my skin, causing boils and blackheads of all sorts to erupt.
Just to add, I’ve never heard my Indian acquaintances, north or south, east or west, gush over fairness. I’ve gotten my fair share of compliments from them, and I’m very definitely a coffee brown.
well even if I put bloggers on sm on a pedestal, I have to realize they must fall; I thought to be a blogger on SM you guys had to be above all this 🙂 (I’m joking!)
i’m dark and sometimes I wish I was lighter, but most of my life I just realize this is how I was created and I’m happy with myself. I think living in the US as weird as the color and race dynamics is, makes me appreciate my dark skin more,,, perhaps than if I lived in India? I don’t know. But I also feel India society isn’t as color concious as the media, including Indian social activists play it out as, …I think it’s a lot more complex and different than the american skin/race paradigms. And I’m one of those Indians that doesn’t feel color in India, unlike for some people in the US, can hold a person back economically and/or socially — well, unless they were dark and looking for a career as a star actress in bollywood.
I love being tanned because I like a little color. What embarrasses me, though, is when my tan points to privilege. For example, I once went to St. Thomas for Thanksgiving, and I came back with probably one of the darker tans I’ve had. I didn’t care about the color but that I stuck out as someone who clearly had the means to go off to the Caribbean for Thanksgiving.
:Two of my husband’s friends married recently. One, an abcd gujju, married a dark brown gujju girl with the most amazing eyes, arching eyebrows and aishwarya rai lips(according to my husband). The other friend, a middle easterner, married a girl from his home, who was very ordinary looking but very fair. My husband and I were amazed…guess who our north indians were gushing over? :
The intent here is not to emphasise colour,rather it’s to question its relevance to the success of a marriage or to the quality of life at all.
i’ve been really tan after trips to south america…after the first trip.. i came back and had a real sunburn..it was weird, as i hadn’t experienced it before… i was browner than brown.. um.. i was red, despite the spf 45 ;).. as my nose peeled i found it odd.. thinking ‘is this what melanin lackers enjoy?’… another time i was watching a ballgame outside sans sunscreen.. i turned as red as a lobster.
Coloured_Perceptions said…”…who was very ordinary looking”
Ouch!
I feel you Amardeep on the shock/awe of the “first summer tan”. I rarely stay out in the sun but early last summer I spent an entire day (8+ hours) in direct sunlight and for the next week, every time I looked in the mirror, I was freaked out. (The fact that I had been wearing a bandanna and ended up with a tan line in the middle of my forehead didn’t help any either.) For me it was more an issue of sudden change. I quite prefer my “summer color” over my winter one as brown covers a multitude of wrongs. 😉
Generally though, the progression takes a few weeks so I don’t notice as much and still get to enjoy the results.
Yeah, I recognize that. Don’t know what to think about it.
Amardeep, I completely understand your feelings coz I go through the same feelings every summer:) I love swimming and on weekends I swim in the afternoon only to come back and see myself 5 times darker than my actual very light brown skin color.
:”There are many different ways of being beautiful, and I find the desi obsession with skin tone (especially as it indexes with the matrimonials culture) tedious and embarrassing”:
Consider the millions of matrimonial ADs,a classic example of this tendency that does not seldom demand a “tall,fair,good looking ” girl.A hard-core feminist would be up in arms about why these ads fail to specify the groom’s complexion.
As many a Virginian can tell you, the post August dog-days farmer’s tan (darker sleeves, neck, lower legs) is eagerly anticipated. Alas, there are no clothing-optional, outdoor sunning stations(not beds) in this state…i’ve had a fine farmer’s tan for over two decades now, every year, at the same time.
I’ve been very self-conscious of my tans from visits to india, mostly because it feels weird to look at your arms and feet and not instantly recognise them. Feels like i’m wearing a second skin sometimes and I do worry for some reason about people thinking that that is my real skin tone. But since I don’t really go about trying for a tan, for me it feels like an imposed change rather than if I changed my hair colour or something.
Being Punjabi, I am pretty fair and that comes from both sides of the family and being fair is desired in my family. However, my Gujurati husband would actually prefer that I be a bit darker and has suggested, on multiple occaisions, that I go to a tanning salon or use some home self-tanners. I like my skin tone, and have been resistent to tanning, but I wonder if that’s just b/c I’m light, and if I were darker, would I think that the grass is greener on the “fair” side of the fence. On the negative side, I did go to Australia recently, and got burned everywhere.. definately not fun!
when i was in high school i’d play a lot of rat-ball on the black-top during the summer. i’d get a really strong tan and my exposed skin (legs, face, arms) would get much darker. my mom would bitch about me looking ‘kala.’ i really enjoyed that that bitching 😉
cognitive psychology tells us that a lot of mental processing is implicit. that is, we don’t have conscious access to it. social conditioning and praise or negation throughout our lives probably has a strong affect on us, no matter what value we try to hold. i think it’s probably the norm for even american south asians, raised by mostly colorist parents who wouldn’t STFU about the topic, to reflect a hierarchy of values where lighter brown is better. my own hope is that because most of us find this obsession unseemly, we’ll keep our mouths shut around our kids, and not perpetuate the meme…. (implicit ticks don’t generally develop if you don’t ram inputs over & over during socialization processes)
I come back tanned from Florida or Myrtle beach. I come back charred from any Caribbean Island. I suppose the sun is a lot harsher there?
A while ago I read that in Asian and in other places where work is mainly done outside in the sun, being light skin shows privilege because you don’t have to work outside in the fields (same applies to the US in areas where agriculture was dominant in the past) but in the US being tanned shows that you are privileged because you have time to take off work to tan.
I don’t mind being tanned but when I get too dark, I lose the natural variation in tone so I look like I’ve poured a darker shade of makeup all over my face.
You know sunscreen goes a long way, but your social environment really contributes to how you feel about yourself. That’s all I really wanted to say, but personal experience and opinion follows.
I’ve had some sort of evolution with my feelings toward getting a tan. In my elementary years I could care less. However, after visiting India, I became more conscious of the “problem” with getting darker. My family has been an advocate of fairness, for the women at least. In middle school and high school I became concerned with staying out of the sun, but it was inevitable because of sports activities and living in a very sunny state. In high school and college I used to go on trips with non-Indian friends who just couldn’t wait to lay out, and I had absolutely no interest in joining them at the time. I did love the beach though so you could find me there under an umbrella or towel. Sometime in college I felt that sun exposure gave me a healthy glow, which I otherwise did not have. Ever since, I feel pale in the winter and look forward to getting a tan, even though I am on the darker side already. Over the years I’ve become an advocate of everyone getting a tan if they don’t have enough sun exposure because everyone’s skin is rather lackluster when they don’t get the sun they need. I also realized more recently I tend to get sunburn and have to use sunscreen. I guess that melanin doesn’t cut it anymore.
Reactions from others upon my return from sun-filled vacation vary. I found that Indian friends generally reacted with, “damn you got dark.” My non-Indian friends really never responded with much, sometimes I wonder if they even noticed. When they did notice though, they would say, “looks like you got a nice tan,” which I was usually assured was not intended to be euphemistic.
Hmm…2 readers have self identified themselves as dark and 5 as light skinned. I think we are making progress. A couple of years back almost no one would call themselves ‘dark’ on here 🙂
being punjabi/potohari, i love getting a tan and getting that “golden-brown” hue ( http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/8826/deemzot9.jpg – i am vain, i think look better with some colour ). how anybody finds fair-yellowish skin attractive is beyond me, especially in this day and age when the advantages of dark skin color are a lower incidence of skin cancer and fewer wrinkles.
fair skinned people look dead to me.
Hmm…2 readers have self identified themselves as dark and 5 as light skinned. I think we are making progress. A couple of years back almost no one would call themselves ‘dark’ on here 🙂
point taken, but perhaps it might be best to just encourage people not to point out their own position on the color & caste hierarchy? otherwise, you get inversions where people rag on light-skin as sickly and stuff, which isn’t nearly as problematic because light-skinned south asians have been told how awesome they are their own life, but is still pretty childish and unproductive in the long term.
I’m a medium-brown person, and I generally don’t tan very easily. What makes me do double-takes after I’ve gotten a tan is not the darker color, per se, but the tan lines – the startling outline of a bathing suit or sandals on my body. You’re right – it’s not embarrassing, just unexpected.
And soberingly: Man gets 2-year jail for calling wife ‘black’ (New Delhi)
For a society often seen to reflect a deeply ingrained bias for “fair skin”, a Supreme Court ruling sentencing a man to two years in jail for driving his wife to suicide following taunts over her “dark” complexion will serve as both a warning and a mirror to its uglier traits.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Man_gets_2-year_jail_for_calling_wife_black/rssarticleshow/2929487.cms
Nice. Sounds like they are “dead” to you.
For a society often seen to reflect a deeply ingrained bias for “fair skin”, a Supreme Court ruling sentencing a man to two years in jail for driving his wife to suicide following taunts over her “dark” complexion will serve as both a warning and a mirror to its uglier traits.
Can somebody post the ruling? Would love to see the legal reasoning behind the sentence.
This is one of the those topics that marks us (abcd’s) as irrevocably different from those who came before and those who will come after, ie; our kids (many of whom will be half-white, latino, asian, black, or whatever). As someone who grew up in the States with Malayali parents, I definitely received a pretty good indoctrination in the “light is right” school of thought, and certainly absorbed some of it early on, at long enough to remember dreams of myself being white as a little kid.
I have two sisters, one darker, one fairer. The darker skinned one is beautiful, far better looking than me or my other sister, but always got the “such a pretty girl, too bad she’s so dark” comments. But Americans certainly had no problem figuring out that she was a stunner, and as adults none of the three of us have ever equated skin tone with attractiveness (except around Indian aunties of course.)
Both of my sisters are married to white Americans, so their kids range from light-ish brown to olive-y. I don’t think that any of the kids ever even thinks about the color of their skin (although my nephew, as a baby, was worried about his dad feeling that he didn’t fit in :).
I guess, at bottom, I feel that this is a conversation that is largely outdated in the U.S., although I appreciate Amardeep giving us a chance to discuss how stupid the syndrome is. It really is kind of embarrassing for those of us who have to explain it to our non-Desi (“no, Indians really aren’t self haters, it just seems that way”).
Suddenly, I’m in the mood for a black & tan.
Exactly why I prefer black coffee over this new fangled fair-trade stuff.
My complexion is like a good wine. The body has well balanced, ripe, soft tannins, has a satisfying, mouth-filling texture, and boasts of a satisfying, lingering finish. It goes superbly with spicy dishes.
I guess, at bottom, I feel that this is a conversation that is largely outdated in the U.S., although I appreciate Amardeep giving us a chance to discuss how stupid the syndrome is. It really is kind of embarrassing for those of us who have to explain it to our non-Desi (“no, Indians really aren’t self haters, it just seems that way”).
i tend to agree with this. that being said, i think there is some nod that needs to be made to the psychological your-so-dark-and-oogly vibe which darker-skinned 1.5 & 2nd geners experienced. i also think that these issues won’t be as salient in gens 3 on forward, because there needs to be a cultural context in which these biases express, and in the USA unless you are very light there is not much marginal difference in identity. the light-skinned brown is still a sand n*gger at the end of the day.
(p.s. also, i really don’t think that this genre of dynamics will disappear in the mixed race, i had half-bengali & half-irish friends as a child, and the “white looking” one tended to be stereotypically more “all american” in their manner, while the “latino” looking one was more attached to his brown ancestry. i think how people treated them based on their look, ethnic or not, had an affect on how they saw themselves and responded)
a lot of spicy dishes go with white wine
I don’t understand why some Indians want to look non-Indian i.e. so fair they are basically white people with dark hair and eyes. It’s stupid.
I don’t understand why some Indians want to look non-Indian i.e. so fair they are basically white people with dark hair and eyes. It’s stupid.
you know why they want to look like that, or want to ‘hit’ people who look like that. that’s good looking. attractive. just like most people don’t want to be fat. the diff. between skin color and fat is that i think being dark isn’t unhealthy, so there aren’t exogenous reasons to be opposed to it, and there is probably a stronger cultural reason why color preferences exist (when i say fat, i mean shapeless obesity which is relatively common in the USA).
Reminds me of the time I asked my mother (I grew up in Madras), why she always said things like: “…xyz is very dark, but still beautiful/handsome” or “..it is so hard to pick up clothes for a darker person…”. It is deeply ingrained! I suppose it started when the Aryans invaded India (!) and pushed the local Dravidians further and further south. Explains why I have heard a lot of North Indians ask, condescendingly, if I am a “Madrasi” (anyone south of the Vindhyas is a “Madrasi” for a person from the North). A friend of mine (also a Tamilian) who grew up in the North, has lots of stories to share about all the times she was made fun of for being dark!
No, I have never been embarassed about my brown skin. (actually, the “naturally wonderful tan” that I have — this was the comment from a Canadian). When my husband and I drove from CA to MO one July, some years back, driving via AZ, CO…I found myself getting sun burnt! I found that amusing, as I did not realize that brown people could get sun burnt! 🙂
I hope that even sub-consciously, I (or my parents) do not pass on this “lighter is better” attitude.
BTW, brown rice, brown bread, brown pasta (brown–>whole grain) are healthier, far healthier compared to the white, refined versions! 😀
Does that go for the hillbillies who have discovered they’re sandy brown too?
I grew up in India until I was 16 and I always loved getting tanned. My friends and I would go to Goa and lay in the sun for hours until we’d come back browner mixed in with shades of red. A tan isn’t really about getting dark — it’s about adding more shades of color to your skin tone. So, I, for the most part thrived on it.
I hope that even sub-consciously, I (or my parents) do not pass on this “lighter is better” attitude.
i’m not sure, but i suspect that you can’t pass it on sub-consciously. i think what happens is that conscious inputs eventually become internalized. if someone makes a proactive attempt not to promote a particular value system the internalization process might not occur (though one could model a situation where implicit cues are detected). i wonder if someone could do an ‘implicit’ test on this? i bet many brown americans would be pretty frazzled if ‘you’re kala! you’re kala!’ was flashed very quickly on the reason so that you couldn’t see it consciously….
46 · -lostaddress said
Getting a tan is not about getting dark? Tans are about achieving a “glow”? Only Desis can come with these absurd rationalizations.
The Scythians give us atrocious Karan Johar Bollywood, push us to Lemuria, pass a law making Hindi as national language, and then want us to sing Jaye He. No, no, no! Damn He!
It’s funny how conditioning works.
My parents weren’t very colour conscious, but I grew up in an environment where I was the only brown kid around and instead of going the whitewashed route, in my confusion I embraced hardcore Pan-Africanist ideologies. I think it’s because I grew up in an era where Hip Hop was exploding and I was naturally drawn to the “cool” factor of AA culture.
Anyway, I can laugh about it now, but it has definitely impacted my preferences. To this day, I will not date a woman lighter than me and generally have an affinity for the darker hue, so yes, fair skinned people are effectively dead to me, lol.