In Black and White

The compound whose anticancer properties I was studying for my doctoral research was working very well in killing melanoma (skin cancer) cells. So my next step was to confirm if this compound was specifically and exclusively targeting cancerous melanoma cells or was indiscriminately killing normal skin cells (melanocytes) as well. To be able to advocate my compound as a potential drug to treat melanoma it would be imperative for me to confirm the ability of my compound to distinguish between normal and cancer cells. 

I was culturing normal skin cells for the first time and at multiple steps of the protocol I could not help but notice how much more it took to maintain normal as opposed to the diseased, puns intended.Unlike the cancer cells, which had pretty basic nutrient requirements, the normal skin cells needed a bundle of supplements including hormones to stay alive. Then one summer afternoon when the cells had grown enough for me to be able to use them for my experiment I put them in a tube to get them to form a pellet. As I looked at the tubes containing the normal and cancer cells, what I saw confused me for a split second but then drifted my mind to revisit a prejudice I, and many like me have faced life long. One of the chief aberrations that melanoma cells display is the near lack of the protective pigment melanin, the concentration of which imparts color to the skin. Essentially greater the concentration of this pigment the darker is the complexion of the person.  I, having cultured only melanin depleted melanoma cells was used to getting a pale white pellet but the pellet from normal skin cells looked quite far from it -it was dark and black. After a split second of doubt later I realized that it wasn’t any dirt or mistake in my handling but the much despised and misunderstood pigment in our part of the world- melanin! As much as I could not help smiling at how my otherwise abstruse bench science suddenly sprang into real life relevance, I also could not help feel frustrated at how shallow the popular perception of beauty is in the Indian society. What was staring at me on the face, was this evolutionarily useful pigment inhabiting a mere .2mm thick layer of our skin that is used and abused as a benchmark of beauty, especially in an Indian context. 

As far into my past as I could remember I have been made to feel and a lot many times told to my face that I was too dark to be considered in the spectrum of beautiful. Sometimes the comments were direct while at other times it was indirect through suggestions on how I could “improve” my complexion. Coming home after a fun time out in the sun would sometimes be received with concerned remarks from aunts about how dark and dirty I looked. Having cousins with ten times less melanin in their skin only made matters worse with comparisons galore. As much as red, pink, purple, yellow and orange were my favorite colors, I learnt to only admire them in nature and on light complexioned girls and never sport them myself.  My 4th grader heart would fill with sudden delight when a relative would pinch my cheeks saying “ mukhta ki mishti” (such a sweet face), but it would usually always be followed by “ kintu rongta ektu chaapa”. (but a little dark). These memories were from a time when I was smart enough to have a sense of self yet naive enough to believe that since the soles of my hands and feet were also a part of my body, if I scrubbed and cleaned the rest of my body well enough, someday the difference will blur and I will turn fair and lovely! 

Expectedly that day never came, instead I learnt that I was born with a physical handicap of being dark skinned and so I needed to compensate by excelling in other fields if I wanted to carve a good public opinion for myself, preferably in academia since I was born into the Bengali community. There were social and cultural signals galore on the street hoardings, television, movies and social gatherings to fortify the idea that dark was unbeautiful. Gori in movie songs was a synonym used for beauty and Mahmoud the comedian unabashedly sang about how despite his dark complexion he had a golden heart! (Hum kale hain to kya hua dilwaale hain). Bleaching agents to fairness creams, skin-lightening lotions to whitening potions  - the shelves were flooded with products promising the quickest and most potent ways to achieve ultimate beauty - light complexion! Fibonacci and his golden ratio had no relevance if not totally bogus. Growing up in such an environment obviously did not work well for my confidence or self esteem. 

However things started looking "brighter" once I moved to southern India for my undergraduate education. I blended more and was picked on less. From thinking people were making fun of me when and if they complimented me about my appearance, to not reacting, to gracefully thanking them- I had to learn and unlearn a lot. It wasn't easy neither was it pleasant but what is important is, it was completely unnecessary. In fact evolutionarily an equatorial habitat and thereby greater sun exposure triggers higher rate of melanin production in people living these areas. Melanin is therefore nature’s way to adapt and protect from sun damage - a natural sunscreen, a valuable survival gift. Unfortunately through generations for some inexplicable reasons the lack of this pigment became the yardstick of physical beauty to the extent of influencing even choice of life partner. As a result me, and thousands like me for generations faced the brunt of obnoxious and unfair color prejudice.  

Later when I actually moved to the "fair and lovely" part of the planet the story of beauty took a shocking about turn. I discovered the blond white world craves for a tan, a hint of color on their pale skin for protection against the damaging UV radiation from the sun AND for beauty! Here the fairness creams are therefore replaced by bronzers and tanners! As much as the brown world would readily peel their skins off to get a light complexion, the white world would gladly roast themselves on a tanning bed risking even the chance of getting skin cancer! I consider myself lucky to be living in a place which is one melting pots of world culture, where I get to interact with people from different parts of the world on an everyday basis. Just a few days ago I was conversing about beauty stereotypes with a group of friends each of who were from a different part of the world and what surfaced surprised me. Here was a group of beautiful women each of who wanted to look like someone else in the room! The dusky one wanted to be white, the white craved a tan, the straight haired one wished she had curls, the curly haired girl swore by her hair straightening iron, the tallest wished she was a few inches short so she would come across less intimidating while the shortest wished she was taller, the Asian would not mind going under the knife for a double eyelid and a sharp nose while the freckled craved a smooth Asian skin! Essentially no one was happy with what they had, everyone craved for some feature of the other- each one was disappointed by the mirror. I realized the problem was circular and vicious yet each of us had the solution to it. It is called acceptance of self - unprejudiced by sociocultural stereotypes of beauty, untarnished by the people's world, just absolute acceptance of who we really are underneath that layer of skin. What's important is to find beauty inside and to be able bring beauty to the lives of others.

 The more I studied Developmental Biology the more I realized how each of us are no less than a miracle of nature. What can be more beautiful than the sheer chance of genetic recombination between the maternal and paternal genomes to result in a unique combination coding for each us and then the precise plan of cell division it takes to give that code a physical form! Is it not utterly shallow and wrong to dismiss all of that just by the amount of pigment present in one layer of the skin? What is even more astounding is the presence of each of us beyond that code, beyond the body - the indefinable but undeniable presence of our soul, the essence of who we really are. If the human eye could see that soul, probably the parameter of beauty would not be caged by the mere color of our skin. 

Do you ever wonder why when we pray, even as we stand in front of an idol, we spontaneously close our eyes? I believe the divinity we all pray to is formless shapeless and most definitely colorless. Durga is much beyond the clay and hay of human construction and therefore we invoke the spirit or energy of the goddess at the beginning of ceremony by performing the 'pranproteestha pujo'. Would the good primal energy she stands for be any different if an idol were to be colored dark? If we understand this I cant see why we cannot extend the same wisdom when we judge people as ugly or beautiful just based on the color of their skin. I'm an eternal optimist and so despite the past I have faced and many like me continue to face, I hope that one day we will learn to look beyond skin color, facial contour and other physical features to find beauty in the sparkle in the eye, the warmth of the smile, the empathy of the touch and the intention behind good action. I'm sure it will surprise us to find how many more and how much more beautiful people the world has than we think. That day we will see light- the light of true beauty!