00:00Ranbir Kapoor is so light-skinned but Valmiki's Ramayana described Ram repeatedly in terms of
00:05darkness. The word Shyama, dark or dusky is used to describe divine beauty and it's not used as a
00:11way to describe an imperfection. In Sundarkand, Sita, separated from Ram, describes him to Hanuman.
00:17She lists his features as markers of majesty. Darkness is among them. In Sanskrit, Shyama
00:23means dark, cloud dark, the color of the sky before the monsoon breaks, the color of the deep
00:28ocean, the color according to the oldest text ever written about him of Ram.
00:32Ranbir Kapoor described his hero as mega Shyamalan, dark as rain clouds. For centuries, Indian painters
00:37gave Ram the color of rain clouds, blue, dark, divine. Raja Ravivamma, painting on the British
00:42Braha rulers, softened him a little but never really fair. It was a cinema that finally whitened
00:46the gods. So here's a question worth sitting with. If Ram has always been dark, why does
00:50Bollywood keep making him fair?
00:52Hindi films have always had a time. The hero is always fair, the villain is dark. Scholars
00:56call it colorism. What's interesting is that this was not something the British planted
01:00in us like a seed and left. We watered this one ourselves. Now think about Ramanand Sagar's
01:05Ramayan for instance. The year it began was 1987. Every morning, every evening, crawls the
01:10family, sat in front of the television, many put a teeka on the screen. We rang the bell
01:14when Ram appeared. But Ram was Arun Govil, fair-skinned, gentle-faced, luminous. Nobody stopped
01:19to ask but wasn't Ram described as dark in the texts? Shyam, mega Shyam, dark as a rain cloud.
01:24That's what the Balmiki Ramayan says. But by the time we thought to ask, it was too late.
01:29The image had set like cement and now there is a new film, a very big film, very expensive
01:34and Ram will be played by Ranbir Kapoor. I have nothing against Ranbir. He's a great actor,
01:38his mother is Neetu, his father was Rishi, fine family, fine actor. But listen, who made this choice,
01:44right? So somewhere in some air-conditioned room, someone decided that this man would play
01:48our Ram and that man happens to look like someone who could appear in a Fairness Cream advertisement.
01:53But that's only my opinion. Why don't you tell me yours? Like and share this video. Follow me on
01:57Instagram. I'm Marisha Dikari. Thank you for watching The Culture Project on More.
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