Almost White

Sometimes a celebrity is just a celebrity. And sometimes she isa sign of the times. Take Aishwarya Rai, for example. Ash to her aficionados,Aishwarya Rai is the most beautiful woman in the world. Or so opines the original pretty woman, Julia Roberts,who should know a thing or two about female beauty one would think. 

Ash is the new face of world cinema,according to the recent issue of the Asian edition of Time in which the Roberts opinion appears. From thecover, Ash gazes out with her "olive green eyes" (this description is to be found inside), bare-shoulderedin a black dress. Her hair is straight and smooth as silk. It is the colour my mother describes as"chematai" in Tamil—rusty, reddish-brown. Beautiful? Perhaps….

But doubt it would seem is not permissible on this issue.Inside, in an interview, a question is posed to Ash: "Are you awarethat half a billion Indian men think you're the perfect woman?" Ash’s answer is more intelligent, if alsodisingenuous, than the question: "If people think I am just an image, they're wrong. I'm just beingthe girl I was brought up to be." 

Is it this upbringing that has made Ash declare she will not be able toact opposite Pierce Brosnan in the next Bond flick unless a body double is used for the inevitable make-outscene? We can only speculate. Meanwhile, the producers are checking with Brosnan about the acceptability ofAsh’s condition.

Since she won the Miss World title in 1994, Aishwarya Rai hasbeen pushing the frontiers of celebrityhood. She has pursued a career in movies with a determination no onecan deny. There has been purpose in the way she has moved from forgettable films with unforgettable music,such as Jeans, to films such as Taal, which marked her transition from mere Bollywood actress toIndian icon. 

Having conquered India, Ash is now preparing with the same determination for an assault on therest of the world, signing up films with UK-based Gurinder Chaddha (Bride and Prejudice) and talking tothe likes of Robert De Niro about possible movies. She is now represented by the US-based talent agencyWilliam Morris. No doubt great things await Ash outside India as well. With a face like that, how could it beotherwise? Beautiful or not, it is a face to conjure with.

Only question is: conjure what?

Well, here are two possibilities: L’Oreal and Coca Cola, forboth of which Ash is a highly visible brand ambassador. Hardly is it possible to open a newspaper or switch onthe television without coming face to face with Ash hawking a product. After the nth encounter, you rememberD. H. Lawrence. "Beauty," D. H. Lawrence once observed, "is a mystery. You can neither eat it nor makeflannel out of it." 

By now Ash’s face is edible, it is flannel. There is no mystery left here. It is aface to launch not a thousand ships, but conjure a thousand commodities for the burgeoning Indian middle classto which she speaks so powerfully.

For only look beyond the conjuring—the hoopla, the hype, theair brushing, the hair coloring—and what is Ash’s mask but the secret face of the Indian middle class: notas it is, but as it has always seen itself to be in its inner-most dreams. Almost the shade that is right.Almost white.

Is it too much to see not perfect beauty but the imperfectlonging of a dark-skinned nation (yes, we are that) in the face of Ash? After all, when Hello magazinerecently voted her the most attractive woman over the likes of Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow, Sahara IndiaPariwar (whose Council Director she is), took out full page ads in newspapers to declare with nationalisticpride: "It takes an Indian beauty to make the entire world fall in love with her." 

But beauty to be beautyshould be mysterious, ineffable. Ash’s face—don’t blame Ash for this—is the all too plain sign of adangerous national desire, a deep-seated need to wilfully misrecognise our identity. Most Indian women willnever be like Aishwarya Rai, not because she is so much more beautiful than them but because they don’t evenbelong in the same physical category as her.

If Aishwarya Rai is the paragon of female Indian beauty, who dowe think we are as a nation?

S. Shankar is the author of the novel A Map of Where I Live, and teaches at Rutgers University.