MY FAIR LADY

Yes, you got it right, i am matrimonial. changing my profession,

there is money in matrimony

Matri and money...... See ??

Match maker is old fashioned. i am matrimonialist 

how about matrimonializer ?

Quite a mouthful it is.

Good morning

One Common factor in the picture above

Fair  Fair   Fair   fair   Fair   Fair   fair, we Indians are obsessed with fair skin

Fair and good looking

Fair around 25

Fair good looking well propertied ...Well propertied ??  deeah me !

Fair professional

pretty slim fair tall,  professionally qualified employed girl ...oops !  Tall order !  some god wants to get married i suppose

what else do we have heeah  ?

Fair Brahmin bride, Brahmin is a high caste Hindu

Fair and beautiful, oh that is simple, thank you

Fair slim preferably in US/Canada, it is getting tougher

9LPA Fair clean habits ? wait wait,

What ?
What is THAT ?  9LPA Fair clean habits ?

i can picture the guy wearing rubber gloves, holding a hose pipe in one hand and a can of disinfectant in the other,  
Hey open your mouth psssssssk, spray the disinfectant in the mouth

hokkay,  you can talk now

What is 9LPA ?
Fair and clean habits !  oh i am exhausted!

please don't ask me about the other code words there, i have no clue myself.

Raghu and Ketu are not two brothers seeking a fair bride. They are stars in some galaxy, something to do with astrology. Don't ask me.  Its a big thing in India. . Astrology is big money here. If i don't make money in matrimony, i'll take up Astro-money. Its easy to cheat people.

What else do we have up there in the picture ??

Divorcee Innocent ?   oh ! innocent... wow, poor chap
If you are too innocent your wife will pack her things very fast and call her mom.

 
Then we have 'God fearing and divorced after 5 month marriage' Perhaps our friend shoved too much of fear of God down his wife's throat. She must have given him a warning.

Any more God and hell  scare,  i am leaving.. and she left.

As i went along,  the matrimonial classifieds were getting more and more absurd. 

And this commercial is even more absurd
please watch this.

please watch a couple of related videos as well.

What they say is,  being fair is the secret of your success. You get your dream job, you get  a handsome prince if you apply their fairness cream.

 Why are these people dumping all the fairness creams on us spending millions on commercials promoting them ?

 Because we want them and we are demanding them.

i don't blame the manufacturers, i don't blame the insensitive and irresponsible advertising agencies. They are here just to make money. Corporates want your money, that is what they are living for.

Give them some money and tell them to make a film on how nice it is to chop the trees. They'll convince you to chop all the trees in your garden and chop all the trees in the world..

They are smart. They are vultures. They feed on your fear, they feed on your weakness, they feed on your obsession of becoming fair, how ever harmful it may be for your skin.

They don't care, They want your money. And you happily give it to them.

This is Shankari. Gorgeous she is ! She is happy with her skin. No fairness creams for her. Everybody loves her. She has lots of friends. She has a  great job. Without using fairness creams. Qualification  talent and experience counts in getting a job, not how fair you are. 
And This is Selvi, sweet thing, sweet by nature and no fairness creams for her either and She is beautiful 
I wonder how many realise that dark skin is beautiful too

Fairness creams for women have been around for quite sometime now. You have some celebrities promoting fairness creams for men. Irresponsible people. Big market, big money there. Specially in India.

We are people, a very strange species, other species are fine, they are what they are. We the people, the strange species, don't want to be what we are.

We are white people, black people, yellow people and brown people. We have been intolerant of each other through out our history..

We are Indians, We are Brown people.. No, Gordon Brown is not brown, he is white but he is not Gordon White like Snow white. NO NO NO, Gordon Brown did not become white by using fairness creams, he is originally white, i mean he is Brown, he was born white but became Brown. And he is still Brown.

There is racism within Indians, within fair skinned and within dark skinned. Racism of the worst kind

i told you we are a very strange species. And fairness cream is not an answer to racism..

Even if you get seven dwarfs as your side kicks you can't become a Snow White using fairness creams. 

What are these fairness creams ?

We have a pigment called melanin which makes our skin dark. Less melanin makes the skin lighter. Secretion of Melanin blocks skin cancer and sunburns. Less cases of skin cancer in black and brown people. Fairness cream bleaches the skin, and blocks the secretion of melanin making the skin lighter. not good for the skin.  We in tropical countries are exposed to very harsh sun rays. Using fairness creams we lose the natural protection.

The manufacturers don't disclose the composition of fairness creams. most of them contain steroids, hydroquinone, a bleaching agent, very strong and very harmful for the skin. Some have mercury in them. There is more information on the net. Please check and correct me if i am wrong.

 
Now here is something which is good and bad.

These fairness creams have temporary effect. Which is good. If you stop using the fairness cream your skin heals itself of its deficiencies and gets back to default setting. Good news.

Bad news is, this temporary effect of fairness creams is good money for the manufacturers. When the skin gets dark again,  we buy another tube, and we keep buying tube after tube making the corporates richer and richer at the cost of your skin. That is not good news.

This is the worst case of attempted cross race jump. i am not talking about athletics.

i have two cases on my hand. three actually. Two cousins and a friend's wife. One of them is a grand mother. They will kill me if i post their pictures. Their skin specially on the face is patchy. some areas light and some dark. looks hideous. This is due to continuous use of fairness creams for years. Patchy skin is permanent. .

Fairness cream is not an answer to racism. Racism will remain, even if you become fair. Use all the creams on your face,  colour your hair, still you are not upgraded to a different race. You remain brown for ever.

Added later :

This is what i am talking about
please take a look at this dumb commercial. A sad and dark Indian, her friend gives her the fairness cream. You see a complete transformation. Back to the same place and she shows contempt for her friend who gave her the fairness cream. The guy at the counter says, 'foreign passport that side m'aam'. She replies in rustic Punjabi, meaning she is a local not a foreigner.  
This happens to be a spoof as Jyothi pointed out.

You just can't change or alter the genetic structure.

Please be what you are.

All my love

VIVA PORTUGAL

what ?

i think i am kidnapped.

Viva Portugal ?

where am i ?

My kidnappers have brought me to Portugal ?

i don't even have a passport, i would be arrested here. No one would pay even ten rupees ransom for me. i would soon get on the nerves of my kidnappers. i keep nagging always and i smoke, i'll tell them boring stories, i would laugh at their dress, their beliefs, and their food habits

what ? you are my kidnapper and you are a vegetarian ? How funny ? get me a beef steak

oh deeah ! i am in sunny Lisbon, all white people, i am indeed in trouble.

i don't trust you, i tell my kidnappers

why wouldn't you trust me ?

bikkass you are wearing a ghastly tie, look at your shirt, ugh ! is that a shirt or you tore off a curtain from somebody's window ?

oh deeah ! look at your pot belly, go jog, i really pity the tailor who makes clothes for you, don't walk with me, stay away.

and you are not qualified enough to be my kidnapper, you can't locate Portugal in the map ? go back to school get some fresh education

get rid of this idiot they would say

So the kidnappers would give me money and send me back home, though i am not expensive to maintain. i am a CHEAP MAN.

oh Portugal is beautiful. Thank you for bringing me here My kidnapper friend

you are not in Portugal you idiot, my kidnapper says

Hey look ! This is not Portugal, this is India, look at the cow running on the road

where else you would find cows running on the roads ?

Muuuwa Muuuwa, can i go now ?

Push him out of the car, says my kidnapper, he is getting on my nerves.

i was not kidnapped, i was in Goa. on the western coast of India. Obviously some one made Viva Portugal stickers for football world cup and people bought them.

they all wanted Portugal to win. Goa was a Portuguese colony until 1961 (please correct me if i am wrong)

Taking a walk in Panjim is like walking in some sunny small Portuguese town.

Many old buildings here, though not in good condition. 

in the picture below
Lorenco Afonso the Gents tailor still in business ? i can see some one walking in.

oh deeah ! the building is falling apart.

Aleluia Menezes ? Must be a Portuguese name. and he is a key maker

A key maker is a person who makes keys. Looks like a very very old establishment.

And here is Pedro Fernades, the music shop and Inocencio Fernades. wonder what he sells. Had no time to walk in to find out.

oh a beautiful house. walls pillars and grills have stories to tell you. Only the hot stinging sun reminds you that you are in India. Goa is clean, lot cleaner than rest of India and more beautiful than Kerala. Similar landscape. Similar climate.

Shot from a speeding train. This is just like Kerala, its on the same coast. Its the names of places roads buildings  and the attitude of the people's which makes all the difference, quite opposite of Kerala. Locals are very friendly and eager to help and direct you. They'll drown you with details The only problem is there are more tourists than the locals, you may stop and seek directions from a tourist. They locals have time for you and they guide you properly. This man is walking with a guide book on India and a local stops to guide him.

the roads are beautiful, in good condition and clean. Very green. Goa is a small state, you can't get lost. Public transport is mostly privatised. Not very good.

Long distance buses are government owned (hardly any long distance as Goa is a small state) But you can hire a scooter or a motorbike for 200 rupees a day which is quite reasonable. Most of the foreign tourists who have an Indian or international drivers license hire scooters to go around. Nobody really stops you to check, the foreign tourists are free to roam around.

if you don't have a drivers license you can always engage a biker as a taxi, you go as a pillion for half the rates of an auto (three wheeler) Goa is the only place in India where you can get motor bike taxis. Tourists find it very cheap.

Buses are small and always crowded. Though rest of India discarded its colonial past the Goans are still clinging on to it. Women dressed in western outfits like in the picture above is a common sight. Woman in an Indian shalwar khamees looks on

By and large Goans are Catholics. 

Goans, Goans ?? like Indians, Americans, 

English Irish Ish Ish  Goaish  ?? doesn't sound good, 

Englanders Irelanders, Swiss ? Swissish, Switzerlander, Hollandish ?? Londoner, New Yorker i am a Hamburger. i come with fries.

Goans sounds nice, i like it. yes Goans are mostly Catholics. Very religious. lots of Churches in the small state. Mostly Portuguese style of architecture. Some in ruins, in an abandoned state.

This was shot from the train late in the evening. This old Church is simply majestic.

i went there at a wrong time, pictures are not good, sorry, and i was in a hurry, friends were waiting outside.

The board says do not photograph persons. This is India. You can't take pictures without people in it. If you want to take pictures of the clouds you will find people sitting there, some chaps selling peanuts or tea coffee.

there are a few Hindu temples as well, not very old and not much history there.

But the locations are beautiful

Goans love fish. They eat fish every day. Sea food is offered everywhere. it is difficult to spot a pure vegetarian restaurant.So for the locals fishing is a major occupation.

i can spend weeks just taking pictures of old colonial houses.

This is in Vasco da Gama, named after the Portuguese explorer navigator. Google the name and read about him.

The locals speaak English very well. so you will not be talking to a tree. the local language is Konkani. And Konkani music is very lively, mostly with western instruments. Do you remember George Baker Selection ? Konkani music sounds something like that. And Goans love to dance.

my journey was comfortable. i was traveling with Rajkumar, very pleasant company. We took Konkan Railway. took a few pictures standing by the door.

The train goes through many tunnels on konkan railway. Both sides are very scenic. Mist greeted us in Goa early morning.

its pretty warm actually, looks cold in the pictures. You can see that the children are not wearing any warm clothes. Gets pretty hot in the day. there is no winter here.

Gets pleasant by December. That is when the tourists come flooding into Goa. But Goa is a tourist's paradise all the time all 365 days. June to September is the rainy season. You'll find lots to buy, spices, silk, herbs, herbal soaps shampoos, tea with different flavours.

Haven't tried any of them myself.

you have to bargain a lot. Lots of things to buy. Even a tourist with a tight budget can afford them. Then we come to why tourists come to Goa.

Mostly for the beaches, some like me for its Portuguese colonial history.

Goa can boast of some very picturesque and romantic beaches in the world.

But you will not find crystal clear emerald green waters here in Goa. Gets pretty crowded by evenings. i missed the sunset pictures. In fact i missed a lot of Goa. This was my 4th or the 5th visit, the pictures i took 15 years ago were lot better than these. my first visit with a digital. Have to go there again. Perhaps in February to watch the Goa Carnival. Sorry the pictures are bad. Most of the pictures were taken from a moving car.

Be silly, be stupid and be foolish

enjoy your life

all my love

Previous Post : Bad Moon Rising