Check-out from my Port Blair hotel, Andaman Residency, is rather early at 0800. This is typical for this town as incoming flights are in the morning.
Flying back to Chennai 1245 on Kingfisher, they have an inflight magazine like no other. It is purely about the glitz and glamour of Indian filmstars. Flicking through the magazine, all but one of the stars (and models in the adverts) look white … like Europeans! The exception was a Tamil actor who is also somewhat fairer than the everyday Tamil that you meet. It appears white is “in” … it isn’t too different amongst many Malaysian Chinese women who wear a second shirt back-to-front, to cover their arms from the sun while driving.
My divemaster had told me of this Indian woman who goes to Chennai for skin bleaching, coming back a shade lighter each time. I wonder if there’s a name for this condition … like eating disorders where people keep seeing themselves as fat … or bodybuilders that never know when to stop building!
Being of peasant stock, I myself go brown very easily (fortunately I don’t mind). There’s a term for our skin tone in Malay … hitam manis (sweet black) … or black beauty, I guess.
I landed back in Chennai at 1445 for another night at the Raj Residency near Egmore station.