Updated September 26th, 2019 at 21:52 IST
India's Got Colour: Nandita Das' fun video shares a strong message
Nandita Das and many other stars came together for a fun video to throw light on the skin colour discrimination and fair skin obsession in our country.
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They say India is a fair-skin-obsessed country, and that could be explained from the fact that fairness cream manufactures have always been able to rope in the biggest Bollywood stars as brand ambassador for decades now. The film industry has shown enough examples of skin colour discrimination, be it Tannishtha Chatterjee being roasted for her skin colour on a comedy show or a casting director saying a ‘fair and handsome’ actor could not be cast opposite Nawazuddin Siddiqui. Led by Nandita Das, Tannishtha and a bunch of Bollywood stars have come together for a fun video to strike home the message that ‘India’s Got Colour’.
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The video starts with director Nandita Das saying, “In India, there are as many colours as there are people. But still we won’t improve, right?”
This is followed by many actors, all dressed in black, rapping about how someone’s skin colour is often ridiculed by people.
In four small segments then, the video hits at the colour discrimination. How someone would date a dark-skinned person but when it comes to marriage, they will always prefer a fair-skinned person; how a pregnant lady is often asked to drink milk so that the child is born fair-skinned and some told to stop consuming tea to avoid getting ‘kaala’; how an dark-skinned model is discriminated by a fashion industry, be it increasing the light while clicking her or photoshopping her pictures; or fair-skinned person winning over a dark-skinned person in a reality show.
Radhika Apte, Ali Fazal, Swara Bhasker, Divya Dutta, Shashank Arora, Vikrant Massey, Ratna Pathak Shah, Tillotama Shome, Shweta Tripathi, Patralekhaa, Satyajeet Dubey, Sayani Gupta, Gul Panag, Chandan Roy Sanyal, Kanwaljit Singh, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Suchitra Pillai, among others, make an appearance in the video.
READ: Nandita Das: Discrimination On Basis Of Skin Colour Unwarranted
Sharing the videos on social media, Nandita wrote, “No more discrimination, time to celebrate diversity. As many people, that many skin tones.”
Watch the video here:
In another post, she captioned, “A fun music video that we made to celebrate the diversity of skin colour in India! After all, we are 1.3 billion people, and that many shades of skin tones!”
Nandita Das also expressed her delight over the response to the campaign and wrote, “Yesterday we launched India's Got Colour. #indiasgotcolour. And the overwhelming responses to the campaign continue to pour in. Thank you all who supported it by being in front of the camera and behind and also to those who have been sharing it widely. Working on the English subtitles by popular demand! Hope it will be dubbed in all the languages by those who can do it. It belongs to everyone and needs to reach everyone.”
Swara Bhasker exulted, “We are a land of 1.3 billion people.. of course #IndiasGotColour Proud to be part of this campaign! Time to realise that skin tone is neither a virtue nor a failing. Come celebrate our diversity!”
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Published September 26th, 2019 at 21:43 IST