All is fair in love, war and fairness cream ads

SCENE 1
Asin and a male model have their instant snap taken. Asin's melanocytes appear to work harder than the guy's. She looks like she's been uniformly shaded with charcoal. Kudos to the make-up expert; guy must have been a charcoal painter. Mr. Fairer looks at the snap, the black and white contrast screaming out at the viewer, tears it into two, hands Asin's half to her and walks away.
Oh no! Poor, heartbroken Asin suffers enormously.

SCENE 2
A lady, whitish pink, in a traditional garb soothes her, and raises her hopes with a new fairness cream, with virtues so pure, sure to make a crow fair. Asin uses it.

SCENE 3
Lo and behold! The dark girl transforms into a fair damsel in a ridiculously short period of time and becomes a beauty queen. Mr. Ex-friend is back with an 'I'm sorry' note and a bunch of flowers. She is very happy, hugs the flowers close and flashes the traditional, silly smile.

Would any self respecting woman think twice about rejecting a friend who returns because she's fairer?
I recently came across an article which spoke of pharmaceutical companies inventing or publicizing common, vague symptoms of rare diseases to boost drug sales. Guess they didn't learn fast enough from fairness cream marketing.

Squash Quash

Joshna Chinnappa......
19 years old, hails from Chennai, plays squash, and is currently the highest ranked Indian (61st) in the Women's International Squash Player's Association (WISPA) rankings.

Strangely, she didn't go to Melbourne this year. Ask the General Secretary of the Squash Rackets (no pun intended) Federation of India (SRFI) and the wisest of answers, "If I had sent them (the best of players) and they had failed in the first or the second round, you'll be asking me why did you send her and waste the government's money?" Noteworthy here, is that Joshna has a sponsor, the Mittal Foundation and hence the Federation is free of all financial responsibilities in her case.

India does not have a squash player at the Games. Joshna Chinnappa, Ritwik Bhattacharya, Saurav Ghoshal and the likes, the SRFI says do not 'have a chance' and so why the trouble.

Joshna's achievements surpass the tennis equivalents of Sania's. But they do not merit an opportunity to represent the country. Indian standards are lofty.

If National prestige is criterion numero uno, what about the brilliant decision of bisecting the Indian Cricket Team into (so called equally good) halves, one to save the country's pride at the Sahara Cup, Toronto where India's defeat was confirmed in the 4th of the 5 match series.
The other squad, geared up for Mission Commonwealth Gold, at Malaysia, 1998 didn't go anywhere beyond the round-robins. National pride did get a boost however with a victory against Canada and a draw against Antigua.

2003 Cricket World Cup, South Africa. Parthiv Patel, then 16 years old, was part of the Indian contingent. He had never played a ODI previously.

I cannot but notice that the aforementioned examples are from cricket.

Joshna has filed a case against SRFI, and her celebrity status is a definite plus at that. But what happens to the less famous young talent who deserve a fair chance to make it to the international stage. Medals are important, but so is making sure of future reaps. After all, in a country where sports are plagued by a dearth of sponsors, the only road to experience is what the big bodies intent on saving national pride and thriftiness, are willing to open up.