Anbudan - Speaking Dark Skinned Indian Women's Truth

 

Have you people watched Anbudan, starring Arun Vijay and Ramba? It was released in the year 2000.

So, the hero (Sathya) gets acquainted with a girl named Thilothy whom he only speaks to on the phone and through letters. He had never seen the girl, but she had seen him. He falls in love with her and begs to see her and she agrees.

She tells him that she will be on a bus, and he must find her among the girls seated on the bus.

Sathya would approach only the fairest and “beautiful” girls in the bus, asking each one if she’s Thilothy – to no avail. Convinced that Thilothy is not on the bus, he leaves in disappointment.

Thilothy then writes a letter to Sathya, saying, “You asked only the girls you found beautiful – fair skinned with good physique and features if they are Thilothy. You didn’t even glance at the dark-skinned, frail looking girl who was expecting you to come and ask, “Are you Thilothy?” At the end of the day, only looks matter, right? I am writing to you to say that you won’t find me forever. As I’m so horrible looking, I’m going to end my life.”

Sathya scrambles to find Thilothy. At last, he only sees her feet as her lifeless body gets loaded into the incinerator at the crematorium.

Sathya regrets his bias and unspoken expectations on Thilothy’s appearance.

I think this is the only Indian movie that spoke about the discrimination dark-skinned Indian women face and express how they feel about it. They never showed Thilothy but she left a lasting impression – she spoke for all the girls who are sidelined, considered dregs, and short-changed only for their looks.

One more aspect I like in this movie is Sathya rejecting Nimmi (Ramba) for Thilothy. The disheartening fact is, however, he expected Thilothy to be equal to Ramba’s “beauty.”

The movie highlights the ingrained bias that exists in all of us, especially in Indian men. If we didn’t see our lover, the primary expectation is them being conventionally beautiful/handsome. The perfect picture would be painted – fair skinned, “good looking.” And we’d act on that confirmation bias.

 Mujhe Dosthi Karogi is another movie that pinpoints this comparison bias. Hrithik loves Rani Mukherjee through letter correspondence. But when they finally meet, Hrithik decides that the fairer and “prettier” Kareena Kapoor is the one he had been communicating with and fell in love with.

Anbudan teaches the lesson to keep our opinions open about how a person makes us feel rather than expecting them to look a certain way. The movie bravely voiced out the undisclosed feelings of dark-skinned women being relegated – I have seen memes scolding that “karuppu, attu (dark, “unsightly”) figure for calling every guy in office, “brother.”  “Now, who does she thinks will show romantic interest in her for her to call men “brother?”

Although there are more Indian men to Indian women ratio, these guys still find ways to project their non-preferences in women’s appearances in distasteful, tactless ways. These guys’ first salivate is always, “Nalla seva, seva nu “alaga” irukra oru ponna kalyanam pannanum.” (I wanna marry a very fair skinned, “drop dead gorgeous” girl.) It’s only when they fail to score by the time they’re 35 do they settle for “any” woman. Then, a heftier dowry is demanded and the dark skinned girl will be taunted and told, “I gave you life by marrying a “reject case” like you.”

Of course, this movie didn’t do well. We don’t like it when dark skinned women are represented as the hero’s love interest in movies, do we? Darker toned women should only be on screen as the Tata salt skinned heroine’s friends and a woman for the hero to mock.  If they showed Thilothy, she’d probably be trolled today. Anbudan broke the mold – I don’t know if today’s directors have the gumption in them to make such movies that convey the feelings of women who are considered, “unattractive and dull with the girl-next-door look” in a way that it creates real change in dark skinned women’s representation in cinema.