It's all because of the way we see light.

There is widespread use of topical corticosteroid creams in India in an effort to look fair, reported CNN. Cortisol is a steroid hormone normally produced by the adrenal glands in our body. "Corticosteroids are man-made drugs that closely resemble cortisol," Cleveland Clinic. Steroids are used in a wide range of life-saving situations and one preparation, dexamethasone, was found to save lives of one in three patients critically ill with coronavirus, HT. "Betamethasone is a potent topical corticosteroid medication habitually used to treat a wide range of skin conditions, including psoriasis and eczema, but one of the potential side effects is lightening of the skin," CNN. Other side effects include dryness of skin, itching, acne and hirsutism, which means excessive hair on face and body in women, Mayo Clinic. These creams are widely available without prescription in India and, once dependent, women find it difficult to stop. In India, "According to experts, a fair skinned person is considered attractive regardless of whether that person has a symmetrical face or a healthy figure," TOI. According to Dr Anup Dhir this is a "legacy from the British era. As our rulers were fair skinned, we also run after fair complexion." That seems a bit glib. Our eyes observe sunlight as white even though it is a combination of 7 colors - violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, or VIBGYOR, each with a different wavelength, Elprocus. We see objects because they reflect light. Black absorbs all the colors of visible light and hence black is an absence of light, wrote Venkata Bhamidipati. "Prehistorically, people would have been more at risk of being attacked by predators or by enemies when in the dark," said Prof Martin Antony. "And we know from the beginning of time, black is the color of night, and it's the color that could hide any nefarious deeds that might be perpetrated under the cover of darkness," said Leatrice Eiseman. There is a campaign to persuade people that dark-skinned, also described as dusky, women are equally attractive as fair ones. Fair and Lovely was "India's largest selling skin lightening cream, with 24bn rupees ($317 million) in annual revenue", BBC. But, consumer giant Hindustan Unilever decided to drop the word "Fair" from the name of the cream and re-branded it as "Glow and Lovely", TOI. Whether this will change attitudes remains to be seen. One reason for the obsession with fairness maybe that most marriages are still arranged. "From watching Indian movies, it would seem as if no issue preoccupies young Indians more than romantic love. While that might well be true, the vast majority of Indians still have arranged marriages," BBC. "In a 2018 survey of more than 160,000 households, 93 percent of married Indians said that theirs was an arranged marriage." Attitudes might change with increased education and well paid jobs for women but strangely female participation in the labor force falls when the economy is growing and increases during economic recession, CPPR. This means that women only work when forced by falling incomes of their male relatives. Color maybe only skin deep, but "the skin is the largest organ of the body and one of the most complicated", as Dr Cara McDonald explains. After all, "You never get a second chance to make a good first impression," Forbes. That mostly depends on eyes. And eyes see light as white. No one's fault, really.