Unexpected
Some of friends requested me to translate my previous article into English as they don’t know Marathi. Thinking about it, translation may not be as engaging to read as original article as lot of context in original article is closely knitted with growing up in Marathi family. So to benefit those who are not familiar with growing up in Marathi family, here is gist of original article.
The article is about how sometimes seemingly usual and innocent things might have unintended consequences, which may be good or bad. There is lot of research done on this subject (which I learned about yesterday :-)) in sociology. See Wikipedia for details.
Article refers to very popular children’s song in Marathi, wherein a younger sibling is asking elder brother to get married to a light skin colored girl who is beautiful like flower.
Article muses over idea of beauty and questions if light skin color is necessary to be beautiful like flower.
Article then refers to some of aspects of how skin color has been factor in British rule in India, societal issues and businesses related to skin color.
Article muses over the idea if innocent and small things like singing particular song might create preference for light skin color in minds of young children and could such insights offer solution to widespread problem in society.
Article does not offer any definitive answer to question it raises. Rather it leaves readers with question in their mind to make their own judgement, while author choosing to avoid playing particular song altogether.
