The HR Thought Leader Speaks
I have to apologize to the Indian MBAs. We had a long discussion and, so far, I've only had time to record the first issue I brought up.
This is an interesting topic for me but I don't want anyone to think that it was all I took away from our meeting. As you'll see in the rest of series, these are exemplary guys whom I admire very much.
But since Gautam Ghosh, whom we all know, has picked up the topic of light skin bias, I'd like to let him carry it forward.
I am a fairly dark skinned guy (even by Indian standards) so have faced the brunt of "apartheid" :-)Yes, we Indians prefer fair-skinned people...and while matrimonial ads get to specify it for women, the same is expected out of a man...however it is not so explicity stated. If the man is a software engineer/doctor with a US visa/green card skin tone is last thing on the girl's parents' mind
This yearning for fair skin is not limited to regions in India but cut across almost all regions. Even in South India, where the majority of the population is dark skinned movie-stars have been very fair skinned.
It's only recently that Indian movies have started to feature actors and actresses with darker skin tones.
On the question why Krishna is blue, well the songs and written words depict him as dark skinned, so to differentiate him from other mortals in the paintings artists started painting him blue. Even Ram, and Vishnu are depicted as blue. Ram and Krishna actually are depicted as incarnations of Vishnu - the creator.
Gautam adds: The difference is that in the US/Canada/European context it becomes a race issue...and that gets a lot of people uncomfortable. But in India, the focus is only on skin tone, and not on 'race' per se.
