Our wellness club was established informally a couple of years ago by a small circle of professional colleagues. Today, the club boasts of a long list of eminent personalities drawn from various walks of life, young and old, men and women, as members. The only factor—that I could perceive—common to all the members was that they were all fair-complexioned. Realisation of this dark secret dawned on me with the admission of a leading medical practitioner as a member.
The petite young lady was a dermatologist. She was not fair-complexioned by any stretch of imagination but her affluent lifestyle and suave behaviour significantly helped clear the various stages of admission with relative ease.
Post admission, members starting with the president, enthusiastically vied with one another to shake hands with her when rather instinctively she chose to do a Nirmala Sitharaman style ‘namaste’. Not stopping at that, she discreetly asked the president if he had a skin ailment. When he nodded in the affirmative, she looked around and probably sighted many more with similar skin problems. What followed was an impromptu health camp.
“A cursory look at your faces and hands, tells me, you are addicted to use of skin lotions, to make your skin soft, but you are probably unaware that using lotions continuously can hamper your skin’s disease resisting capacity.” She continued, “today’s youngsters I can understand, but I do not know why elders, especially the well-educated, end up being addicted to the use of these creams.”
“But celebrities do endorse the products,” one of the members said. “And get commensurately paid for it,” the doctor quipped. She then added, “I know a very popular model for a leading brand of hair dye and she has long smooth flowing white hair! These beauty aids contain chemicals to which your skin may be allergic to, leading to inflammation and consequent discolouration of skin.
We have taken up with the Drug Controller General of India to include such lotions in Schedule H of Narcotics and Psychotropic Substance Rules. Why go by the colour of a person’s skin?” she queried. “One should not be thick-skinned, for such people are not receptive to well-meaning advice! Our mindset must change. We must feel comfortable in the company of people like me who have brown skin,” she added with a mischievous smile, sitting in the driver’s seat and speeding away in her limousine.
M S Vaidyanathan
Email: maharajapuram.s.vaidyanathan@gmail.com