What do you notice when you look at the pictures of Saraswati and Lakshmi above. Probably the first thing you don’t notice is the color of their skin, because we are so used to seeing them portrayed as white. Even the deities said to be black, like Krishna, whose very name means dark, and Kali, are most often pictured as white—or in the case of Krishna, with a blue complexion. It’s interesting when you think about it, because these beings who are said to have lived, did so in India—a part of the world with lots of dark-skinned people. I found a fascinating article online from an Indian blogger named Chirali Sharma discussing the work of an Indian photographer who created beautiful pictures of some of the deities with appropriately dark skin. Makes you wonder why Jesus of the Christian faith is most usually depicted with European white skin. How many religions consider white the color of holiness?
In Pics: This Is How Pretty Indian Gods In Dark Skin Can Look through this Photographer
By Chirali Sharma - February 27, 2021
Dark is beautiful of course but not when it comes to our gods. Our gods, that we worship and consider to be the beginning and end to our universe, are expected to be white as milk.
See, even till now, we have the notion that white or fair skin is better than dark skin, which is just further imposed by our very dear advertisement industry, with Fair and Lovely being one of the most popular face-cream brands in India.
Marriage ads have requirements for a ‘fair-skinned girl’; parlor staff, mothers and relatives still pester girls on how to lighten their skin, and India is still obsessed with white skin, but perhaps one area where not much attention is given is to how our gods are represented.
Most of the times, our Indian gods such as Lakshmi, Saraswati, Ganesh, are shown as quite light-skinned in pictures and idols, with a majority being female.
There are a few dark-skinned gods like Shiva, Krishna, Kali and such, but most of the times even their skin is lightened to show a slightly blue-ish colour instead of dark.
However, in a ground-breaking move, a Chennai-based photographer, Naresh Nil came out with a photo-series in December 2017, that reimagined Indian gods with a dark skin. Creative director Bharadwaj Sundar worked with Naresh on this project.
The series was named ‘Dark Is Divine’ and from September 2017 till the next 2 months, they created about 7 portraits, each featuring a different god.
Sundar stated that the reason for doing this series was the widespread acceptance of Indian gods having light skin color. After observing a photo in his house, the idea was formed and he added that, “Whether it’s temples within our own homes or the pictures of gods at a barber shop – they are all the same. All of them show gods who are fair.”
Nil on the other hand gave his reason for doing this series as, “Our idea was born out of this very notion of acceptance of fair as divine, which to me is more about normalization of this concept in society.”
Apparently, it was not just the gods who had to be dark skinned, but the models portraying them also had to comfortable with their complexion.
Nil said that, “The most essential consideration was whether the models themselves were comfortable in presenting and associating themselves with the representation of their skin tone.”
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