REDIFF DIARY	Why do we want to be like white people? Why can we -- and they -- not accept that once you scratch the surface there is no difference between them and us -- that is, there is no them and us? We may not be like white people (which is what makes us want to be like them), but we are just like them. Making it all the more mystifying why we want to be like them. But then, people will be people... and like people. If that sounds convoluted, it is only as convoluted as it sounds and therefore, very simple. Consider this: People in the West spend hours working up a tan. People in my part of the world spend a lifetime working to be fair. People in the West fall hook, line and sinker for creams that promise a tan. People in my part of the world fall hook, line and sinker for creams that promise to get rid of a tan! The skin, thus, is always better on the other side of the earth. So what is it about people that they can't get what seems so simple to the objective mind? Maybe the answer lies in the fact that human beings are not meant to be, were never meant to be, objective. We are emotional animals, and emotion clouds and drives judgment. Which leads me to question the assumption that humans are the thinking, feeling and intelligent race researchers would like us to believe we are. How thinking and intelligent can we be if we can't seem to get something as basic as this? It doesn't take an Einstein to see the foolishness of it all, does it? If they want to be like us and we want to be like them, why do we bother putting ourselves through the misery of all the accompanying baggage that comes with this kind of un-thinking? Lives have been ruined by this kind of thoughtlessness. Minds messed by years of such conditioning. And industries fuelled by the stupidity of a supposedly intelligent race. What were, are, we thinking? Not much, I guess. Or maybe too much! So why don't we just pause and not think for a while. Not think about what people think about us. And try not to be the thinking race that we humans are made to believe we are. Maybe we should go back to the time we were more like animals: as basic as we used to be, until we got saddled with all this evolutionary baggage. Hold your fire, this is not one of those animals-are-better-than-us kind of arguments. This is just a reaction to a moment of truth that struck me when I was watching yet another 'subvertisement' encouraging people to pile on fairness cream. Yes, I admit it. Sometimes I too fall for that kind of thing. Can't help it. I, we, have been conditioned to be unhappy with the way we look. We cannot let things be. We will not rest till we are as close as we can get to the other side. And when we achieve that, we still wouldn't rest easy. We'd want to get right back to where we came from -- the side we were in, we are now in, and not want to be in. Boy, do we have issues! Issues like people with curly hair wishing it were straight; people with straight hair wishing it were curly. People married wishing they were single; the singles hating being single. Thin people wanting to be fat; fat people wanting to be thin... Every which way you look at it we don't want to be like us. We want to be like the other! Well, people will be people, I guess. And so, I would say the human race is built on a culture of dissatisfaction and discontent, that progress is measured by how unhappy you are and what you have managed to do about it. That happy is not something kids are encouraged by their parents to be. That a constant state of discontent is what we'd rather they internalise as a necessary stimulus to overachieve... Strange indeed are the ways of this most evolved among all species on this planet, a race conditioned to find happiness in unhappiness. Boy, am I sad! Good. I'm human. Montreal-based Avinash Subramaniam has got over his fascination for the 'white' side of the earth. Tell us what you think of this diary Be part of an exciting venture! Write a Diary!
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