Guest Post: How fair are your decisions?

Don’t we all pride ourselves in being fair with our decisions? Don’t we always strive to be on the fairer side of things most of the time? Well, after reading this post, we will think twice about being fair going forward.

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Vaaranam Aayiram (Thousand Elephants) is a famous pasuram (hymn) rendered by the mystic poet Andal in which she recollects her dream of marrying Lord Krishna. Vaaranam Aayiram is also the title of a tamil romance movie of Gautam Menon starring Surya and Sameera Reddy. Well, what’s the connection? The news of Sameera Reddy getting married has broken a few hearts here. I personally think she could have waited and chosen better.

Marriage is a decision taken with incomplete (or incorrect) information. Only time can say how much incomplete or incorrect it is. Economists talk about something called – ‘Optimal Control Theory’. This deals with the question of when do you stop searching and optimally settle for what you get. If there is ‘Excess Supply’, continue the search. If there is ‘Excessive Demand’, you better be satisfied with what you get. In the marriage market, the longer you search, the older you get.

What has puzzled me is Sameera’s skin turning fairer and fairer one movie after another. Is it the work of some slick photoshop editor or does the fairness come from some cosmetic? I don’t know. I did my Bachelor’s in Pharmacy. I can see some of you dear readers raising your eyebrows. See the twists and turns in my life! From the world of medicine to the world of software testing. Where I wanted to go and where I ended up is two different things. But I digress. In my pharma lab, I have prepared Lactocalamine using a mortar & pestle at less than 10% of the price at which it is sold in retail shops! If there is one industry that is growing in leaps & bounds, it is the cosmetics industry. They sell hope and miracles and find gullible customers everywhere.

I repeatedly ask my daughters not to judge anyone by their skin color. Amar Chitra Katha (and for that matter Bollywood) depicts all the evil folks in darker skin tones and somehow, that prejudice grows in young minds. When I visit my elder one’s school, I see most of the senior students with eyebrow arches and straightened hair. Beauty parlor customers are getting younger day by day! My younger one frets that I am the oldest looking dad in her class. I explain that most other fathers color their hair, while I don’t. I then compare myself with film star Ajith and tell her how attractive salt & pepper hair is. She hasn’t bought into that comparison yet!

In the movie Vetri Kodi Kattu, Malavika sings – ‘karuppu than yenukku pudicha coloru’ (Black is my favorite color).My wife thinks I like this song because of Malavika. That’s only partly true. Here Malavika extols all that is black – the rain clouds, the color of temple vigrahas, her lover’s moustache, the womb of a mother and so on. I wish women realize that they are beautiful just the way they are. Though the cosmetics industry would collapse then, they will have some extra time & money to do what they want to do in life!