Illustration by Sabahat Ahmad

As a half-Pakistani person, I often cozied up on the couch for Bollywood movie nights with my family growing up. These nights were more than a tradition—they were a rite of passage. I’m a fair-skinned South Asian, and this was a way for me to connect to my culture when I didn’t necessarily present as such on the outside. I idolized the actresses in these movies, awkwardly shaking my preteen hips and listening to soundtracks of films like Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham and Aśoka on my CD player days later.

I first visited Toronto in 2015, when I was 24. I came to heal from a bad breakup in my hometown of New York City. A year later, I met my now-husband and fell for him immediately, permanently moving to Canada. He also has a South Asian background, and it made me feel less homesick to experience the comfort of Bollywood nights with my in-laws. We’d throw in our own sassy commentary, poking fun at the soapy love scenes and dramatic dance routines while being enamoured by them at the same time.

My move to Canada was not only out of love for my husband, but love for the city. Toronto has a massive South Asian population (nearly 385,000 as of 2021). It’s also the place with the highest number of South Asians in Canada. In Scarborough, where I live, our cultures are celebrated like nowhere else I’ve been in North America. Despite growing up in a place as diverse as New York, I’d never experienced such a normalized and integrated Indian and Pakistani culture, with aunties walking around in saris and Desi aromas like masala wafting through the streets. As a result, Bollywood carries some heft as a mainstream art form here, and a more diverse range of Bollywood and South Asian films are more present on Canadian Netflix than they are in the States. It’s heartwarming to see the classics of my childhood not just in their own dedicated section but in Netflix’s most-watched films, validating and serving the viewing preferences of the population.

But in the decades between the beloved films of my childhood and Bollywood movies today, not much has changed. The very same thing that brought me comfort is also holding us back as a culture. Only years later, as we watched these movies with my husband’s nieces, did I fully understand the unrealistic beauty standards they presented. European aesthetics are put on a pedestal, and actresses are cast accordingly, sending the message to young South Asian girls that fair means beautiful. As I watched my nieces regularly straighten their gorgeous curls, I reflected on the fact that the wide range of beautiful South Asian women is and was often underrepresented onscreen.

In Canada, these same issues of colourism and racism persist despite the country being globally recognized as a place where all cultures can thrive and coexist harmoniously. This shows us just how pervasive British colonialism remains in India and beyond. In searches for Canadian Bollywood actresses online, starlets like Sunny Leone, Nora Fatehi and Lisa Ray are the first three to pop up. This is in part because they’re the most popular, but it’s no coincidence that they also have fair skin and European features. It makes me feel as though darker-skinned South Asian women are set up for failure. I worry that young Canadian girls like my nieces will inherit these Eurocentric beauty standards, negatively impacting their self-esteem and making them want to fit into an unrealistic mould rather than appreciating what makes them so unique.

In January 2024, I read that Ed Westwick (everyone’s favorite toxic drama king from Gossip Girl) was marrying a Bollywood actress named Amy Jackson. She looked suspiciously Western to me, and with the name Amy Jackson, I knew I had to dive deeper. Was this the case of a name change or something more? She could have been racially ambiguous; as someone who is overtly conscious about being perceived as fully white when I’m not, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. I saw the dark hair, olive skin, and light eyes not unlike my own and assumed she must also be of mixed-race heritage. But after a not-so-deep dive online, I discovered that she was, in fact, an English-speaking, British white woman who was somehow ludicrously popular in Bollywood films. I had the same moment of disconnect when watching one of my favorite shows a few years back, Made in Heaven, and discovering that one of the actresses, Kalki Koechlin, was also a Caucasian woman, despite being raised in India and speaking Hindi, which has helped her fit in when she takes on these roles.

In the past, South Asian actresses who passed as white were showcased and picked first. Today, it’s enough to be white and speak the language. I don’t even think I would mind if these actresses openly acknowledged their skin tone. But the fact that it remains hidden and requires some digging begs the question: is this Brownface Lite? Is it cultural appropriation? Or is it okay if these women were raised in Indian culture and consider India their home? It’s tricky to know where to draw the line.

I’m not trying to downplay the acting skills of talented, lighter-skinned South Asian women. It’s their right to take up space in their industry of choice. But I do find it troubling that these light-skinned and white women skyrocket to fame with such ease and are sought out by directors and producers in Bollywood while thousands of talented actresses with South Asian heritage are cast aside.

Bollywood has a history of giving priority to lighter-skinned actresses, and it perpetuates the harmful side effects of the caste system in South Asian countries such as India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Skin-lightening creams are frequently advertised in India by major stars like Shah Rukh Khan, and it’s always seemed gross to me.

These messages are already too strong in South Asian culture. I attribute much of that to the brainwashing of the British Raj, which dates back to the 1850s, nailing in the mentality that if you have Eurocentric features and traits, you’re bound to succeed. These sentiments are still fully normalized and accepted.

Anyone who watched Indian Matchmaker has probably heard the bevy of problematic things the show’s star, Sima Aunty, has said, often lauding lighter-skinned people as a great catch just because they’re “fair.” She would prioritize women that fit that colourist Bollywood aesthetic for many of the show’s eligible bachelors. My own fair-skinned grandmother would use the slur “kala,” a derogatory term referring to dark-skinned people. In contrast, as someone who is often perceived as fully white, I’ve been called “gori” which refers to a light-skinned or white girl. I’ve always hated this dichotomy. I’ve heard people within my community freely comment on the skin tone of children. This widely accepted language creates a hierarchy and promotes problematic beauty standards—whether it’s meant as a compliment or a passive-aggressive criticism—and it affects children, subconsciously or not.

It feels grotesque for billion-dollar industries like Bollywood to profit off the commodification of white faces in distinctly brown roles. It screams, “brown women, this is what we want of you. This is how you can be seen as a woman.” As if darker-skinned women with distinctly South Asian features are not equally worthy of earning a “vixen” role or being picked out in a crowded audition room.

If Bollywood showed women who represent the full spectrum of South Asian beauty, it would have a global impact, expanding beauty standards in South Asia and beyond. It would improve the self-confidence of women and girls while challenging the outdated norms of colourism and even make the worlds of beauty and fashion more inclusive, making way for a more empowered female population, which we need more than ever on a global scale.

While it might seem like not much has changed, we’re moving in a more positive direction. In Canada, I see hope in talented Canadian stars like Rekha Sharma, Kamal Sidhu, Uppekha Jain, and Parveen Kaur. It’s no surprise that Canada is leading the charge in showing the many forms that brown beauty can take beyond a skinny nose and pale skin, which will hopefully create a ripple effect in other countries.

Brown women will always remain at the heart of Bollywood, and if, as audiences, we can start to acknowledge how women internalize what they see onscreen, we can start to consciously change both the everyday lexicon we use to discuss beauty and the narratives we craft.

That wild bolshevik magazine Time has had the gall to question the notion that America is the best country in the world. The March 14th cover story, by Fareed Zakaria displays a red foam finger the reads “We’re #1” pointing downwards. “Yes, America is in decline,” reads the caption.

Some could argue that the U.S really hasn’t been in the best shape for a while now. In Canada, we have this crazy notion that Americans—occasionally—look at things from a different angle. Speaking of backwards, turn that Time cover upside down and there is a caption that reads “Yes, America is still No. 1.”

Of course the statistics say that over a year ago the unemployment rate was the worst it has been since 1983, with 15.7 million Americans out of work. Also, the U.S. is starting to fall behind other nations in terms of life expectancy, infrastructure, and is now only the 4th strongest economy in the world.

CNN specials airing this past weekend tried to advise the discouraged and unemployed with strategies on how pull themselves up by their boot straps and get back to work.

Of course this might require learning some Mandarin and having your evening news read by—gasp—a Muslim. Shockingly, some Americans aren’t too happy about this, because while millions have been out of work they have also been living under a rock. The comments on the CNN web page describing Fareed Zakaria’s feature story and his TV special “Restoring the American Dream: Getting Back to #1″ show how truly excited and open American audiences are to inform themselves and discuss change. The comment section is a swamp of racist horror that you do not need to read in full. But a few choice excerpts illustrates the point.

One commenter asks “Why is CNN/Time giving this MUSLIM a platform to trash America?” Then he/she proceeds to tell Zakaria (degrees from Yale and Harvard in hand, presumably) that he should go back to where he came from: his “shit-hole birth place INDIA.” Another asks: “Is he even American? It seems he would more likely be worried about where he is from. We don’t need some Indian telling us what we should be doing.”

Yes, America, though your economy is teetering, your political system dysfunctional, and your populace increasingly unhealthy, when it comes to weird xenophobic internet trolls, you truly are a city on a hill.

Who knows if the global economy is recovering, stagnating, or double-dipping? To most around the world, however, the state of the economy can be reduced to two simple metrics. Do you have a job or not? Is it a good job? With that in mind we’re looking today at some of the world’s largest employers, both public and private.

1. The People’s Liberation Army (over 2.2 million employees)
You don’t get to be a global superpower these days without having an enormous military. In most countries, government spending on armies and armaments is a major part of the domestic economy. Sad, yes. True, also yes. It used to be that there were no ranks in Mao’s army but, along with the rest of China, the military has opted for a more hierarchical structure. So, for a few, the pay is good; for most, it isn’t.

2. Walmart (approximately 1.8 million employees)
Walmart’s workforce is more than triple the size of the world’s next largest corporate employer (Deutsche Post, the formerly public German mail corporation). But that’s not because it entices workers with competitive pay or generous benefits. No, Walmart has pretty much written the book on how to maintain a huge workforce while spending as little as possible. Allowing unions and respecting workers’ rights–that’s not how.

3. Indian Ministry of Railways (approximately 1.6 million employees)
India’s iconic railways are romanticized by both Indian nationalists and colonial apologists as the arteries which hold the world’s largest democracy together. This is not the longest railway network in the world (the US has 200,000+ miles of track to India’s 60,000+), but the Indian government does hold a national monopoly, making it the world’s largest railway company in the same way that Ontario’s LCBO is one of the largest liquor retailers in the world.

4. National Health Service (over 1.7 million employees across the UK)
Pensions and other vital programs are being threatened as Europe’s haves borrow and steal from Europe’s have-nots. One of the sectors likely to be hit hard is the UK’s public healthcare system, the largest in the world. In a noisy session of Parliament, Labour MP Alan Johnson accused some in the Conservative caucus of cheering “the deepest cuts to public spending in living memory,” suggesting this is what they got into politics to do.

Compiled by Kevin Philipupillai and Simon Wallace

Slumdog Millionaire Child star Azharuddin Ismail plays in his shanty on May 30, 2009 in Mumbai, India. Ismail's family faced evicition from their dwelling in spring 2009. Photo by Getty.

It can be an eye-opening experience that helps everyone involved move towards greater understanding….

It’s been happening in Rio’s famous favelas for some time. Now slum tourism—which turns a real-life ghetto into a “hot” tourist destination—has spread to Johannesburg, Manila, Cairo, and, in the wake of the blistering success of Slumdog Millionaire, Mumbai. But it’s controversial wherever it goes.

Shelley Seale, author of The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, thinks slum tourism (also known as “poorism”) can be positive for both visitors and locals, but only if it’s done right. Seale toured the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, Asia’s largest slum and the setting for Slumdog, with Deepa Krishnan of Mumbai Magic, a socially responsible tour operator who donates a portion of her profits to local NGOs.

“Dharavi gave me a resounding rebuttal to the myth that poverty is the result of laziness,” Seale says. “I have never seen people work so hard. The place abounded with an industry and entrepreneurship such as I have not ever witnessed anywhere else. “It was an amazing experience, and I believe that things like this can do a lot to eradicate cultural bias and misunderstandings, and also the images of poverty that many of us have.”

…but it can also be exploitative and tarnishing to India’s global image

Indians tend to be very sensitive about their country’s identity. Many didn’t embrace the feel-goodism of Slumdog because they felt the film portrayed their country in a negative light, without offering explanations or solutions for the living conditions in the slum.

Likewise, Indian tourism professionals tend to be wary of slum tourism. They feel it can be exploitative, turning people’s lives into sideshow spectacle and obliterating both the slum dwellers’ humanity and the underlying issues, like India’s unrelenting rural to urban migration.

There are also justifiable concerns about who conducts the tours, and how. Ronjon Lahiri, director of India Tourism in Toronto, says that many of the so-called slum tourism operators are only looking to make a buck and don’t educate tourists on Dharavi and its residents.

He says that many people live there because Mumbai’s property prices are among the highest in the world. Even when residents make money, many don’t leave because Dharavi has become their home, their community.

For Lahiri, “Slum tourism is not to be encouraged. It is not good for India and not good for the people living there.”

Environmental activists hold a demonstration in the centre of Copenhagen on December 15, 2009 in Denmark World leaders started arriving today to attend the Climate Summit where they hope to work towards a global agreement. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

A lot of stock has been put into the current International Climate Change Conference. Not only a stake in our future, and the world as we know it continuing to exist, but our national identity—how we deal with international conflict, how we assist other countries needing a hand, and when we choose to exert a leadership role. For the issue of climate change has never just been an environmental one, but a moral one.

Yesterday, unexpectedly, the Canadian government announced that Canada had changed its position and would lead in climate reduction figures and commit to aid for developing countries to do the same. In what turned out to be a bit of a cruel joke, however, it was actually a hoax. For Canadians, it remains quite sad that the possibility of our government adopting a leadership role on climate change is just that—a joke.

Long gone are the days when Canada was seen as an international leader. We’re now generally considered one of the bigger obstructions during international discussions on the biggest issue of our time.

Not only are our political leaders positions embarrassing, but some other outspoken Canadian figures. Today on CBC’s Metro Morning Jeff Rubin, former CIBC Chief Economist and author of Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, echoed a disappointing attitude that Prime Minister Harper and Minister Prentice have voiced before—the idea that Canada is not the biggest polluter globally, and therefore it’s China and India that should step up to the plate and reduce their emissions first.

What a sad state of affairs it has become that our national attitude is to rely on developing nations, who still struggle with more basic problems of hunger, housing and poverty, to lead the way. Canadians use more oil per capita than Americans, making individual Canadians more than proportionally responsible for their part in the global climate change dilemma. It is morally reprehensible to expect those with a lower standard of living to “do their part” before us.

Yet an interesting article from the Washington Post suggests that while Canada and America do need to step up to the plate, perhaps the best thing we can do back home to send a clear message to Copenhagen is to make December “Green Free” month—that we should stop our individual efforts and demand institutional change. During the civil rights actions of the 1960’s, the author argues, it would not have been adequate for a few progressive folks to adopt integrative values in an otherwise bigoted environment—the difference is in institutional change.

So too, it argues, should be our attitude to hold our leaders accountable. It will not be acceptable to go half way, it will not be acceptable to rely on individuals to take action, and it will not be acceptable to point fingers and say someone else isn’t doing their part so we shouldn’t have to either.

We can hear the tck tck tcking of the clock as the summit only has a few days before its conclusion. What will leaders emerge with? That they have finally adopted the positions of leadership that their titles would suggest? Or is it up to us, as individuals, to paint the world green? And what, as Canadians, will we choose to hold on to as our national identity?

Flopenhagen, Hopenhagen… it may well be time for Copenhagen. As in, how are we going to cope with the aftermath and repercussions of this conference?

Naomi Klein giving the opening keynote at KlimaForum09, the alternative climate change conference underway in Copenhagen. Photo courtesy KlimaForum.

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK — The thread is being pulled on the climate talks here in Copenhagen, and the whole show is beginning to unravel. There are really several different conferences happening, and the cracks are showing.

The developing world has been so outraged by the proceedings in Copenhagen that the G77 leader, Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping, walked out of the conference last Friday in protest. “Things are not going well,” he said in the Politiken newspaper. “This conference will probably be wrecked by the bad intentions of some people.”

The eruption and divisions began last Tuesday when the Guardian leaked a document, called the “Danish Text,” that virtually back-rooms the climate summit to the rich and powerful. The document, that is perceived to have been a draft floated strictly to G8 countries by the Danish government, takes two steps backwards on the industrialized nations’ obligations to the developing world, and sidelines the entire UN climate negotiation process.

In response to this, The Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) also on Friday protested inside the conference demanding their own draft treaty—a survival pact instead of what they called a “suicide pact.” They say that the 2°C being agreed upon by the Industrialized world would submerge many of the world’s Small Island States this century, and that instead 1.5°C needs to be the target.

“We are facing an emergency, a planetary emergency that affects everyone but first and foremost affects AOSIS,” said Dessima Williams, Chair of the AOSIS from Grenada.

Even if the Danish Text were ignored, there is an underlining sense in the conference halls that the summit is behaving more like a G8 meeting than an international negotiation.

Reasonability is the core of this issue: Responsibility to include the marginalized, responsibility to lower our emissions, responsibility to the people who will be most affected and who have contributed the least, the responsibility of politicians to recognize scientific realities.

But lack of responsibility is hindering this Copenhagen deal, potentially sabotaging the entire negotiation. Naomi Klein says that we are facing is a “climate debt,” a debt the Industrialized world needs to pay up to the developing world, as the Western World has created most of the problem with our climate and needs to take responsibility for it.

“It is after all Industrialized countries that have emitted 75% of the world’s greenhouse gases, yet 75% of the affects will be faced by the developing world,” said Klein in her opening statement at the alternative people’s conference in Copenhagen, KlimaForum09.

Some argue that the West is beginning to take responsibility. The announcement just before the climate conference began by the Obama administration gave some life to this debate, as the States offered a $10 billion dollar annual aid fund between the rich nations to the ones in need as of 2012. But is this really enough?

The World Bank says that developing states are facing costs of US$100 billion a year just to adapt to the current climate change situation we have created, while Climate Action Network US argues for $600 billion.

Somehow we found the money to bail banks out of a crisis they created, with the US mustering $700 billion and Canada $75 billion. So the question must be asked: where are our priorities? Averting the greatest man-made crisis? Or propping up the elites in a “disaster-capitalist” system?

No, the Developing world is not blameless. Many, like China and India, do not want to be restricted in the climate treaty with absolute reduction targets nor to curb emissions by 2020, which is part of the hindrance to these negotiations. But you cannot have your cake and eat it too.

Though the west must be accountable to the countries that will face the brunt of the pains of climate change, it is now all of our problem so we all need to take responsibility for it. Until we do, we will not be ready to make a real climate treaty.

Emily Hunter is an environmental journalist and This Magazine’s resident eco-blogger. She is currently working on a book about young environmental activism, The Next Eco-Warriors, and is the eco-correspondent to MTV News Canada.

An Indian surrogate mother takes her first, and last, look at the child she has carried for another couple in this still from Zippi Brand Frank's film Google Baby

I saw the future of outsourcing at TIFF this week, and it’s not pretty. The award-winning documentary Google Baby follows Doron, who sees the need for affordable, outsourced babies after he and his partner spent $140 thousand having a baby in the United States. He forms a team of like-minded entrepreneurs across the globe and we get to watch them make a baby.

Couples come to him with their egg donor requirements, from skin colour to education level, and he helps them navigate an American egg eBay. He ships sperm to the United States for fertilization and follows most of the action from Israel via Skype. When the four-cell embryo arrives only weeks later, Doron packs his trusty liquid nitrogen tank in a suitcase and jets off to India to hand deliver it.

Dr. Patel finds Indian women willing to carry a baby in return for enough money to buy a small house for their own children. While she is kind and understanding with the women who live in her clinic for the better part of a year, she’s quite clear that this is a business, and they are her employees. The parents fly in for the delivery and then leave with the baby.

I’d always thought I was pretty open minded when it came to reproductive rights: your body, your choice, none of my business. But this movie has me thinking. Eggs harvested and then bought and sold online. Women with the most in-demand traits designated “premium” donors, while women without a place to hang their saris rent their wombs for $4,000 to $6,000.

Doron uses the word “production” so often you can’t help but wonder if he’s completely detached himself from thinking about the people involved. Patel spends most of the movie on her cell phone, even taking a call while stitching up a surrogate’s Cesarean incision.

While everyone in the film makes his or her own decisions, and gets what they want out of the deal, be it cash or a baby, it all seems a little too brisk for comfort.

There are better ways than the scrap heap to deal with an old computer. Creative Commons photo by Flickr user ÇP.

You know it’s wrong to toss your e-waste in the trash but you also know that too often e-waste ends up in a country like India or China, where labourers are exposed to toxic fumes and cancer-causing dioxins as they strip down old electronics, and discarded heavy metals end up contaminating local soil and water.

Unfortunately, there are no national standards for e-waste recyclers, so making sure your old PC isn’t being illegally shipped overseas requires a bit of work on your part. Here are five tips to help you out with that process:

1. Contact your province’s recycling council or your regional district office for a list of recommended recyclers. Bear in mind these recyclers are only “recommendations,” so you’ll have to exercise due diligence. Ask whether they carry an ISO number, which certifies they adhere to internationally recognized business and environmental standards. Also ask how they recycle e-waste. Locally? In what types of facilities? Some recyclers will send components to specialized smelters in Europe, but that’s rare. Any mention of sending e-waste to India, Africa, or China should raise red flags.
2. Find a reputable computer refurbishment centre such as reBOOT or Industry Canada’s Computers for Schools. Both agencies will give new life to your end-of-life hardware and distribute it to a non-profit or charity. You can find your nearest reBOOT or Computers for Schools program on their websites.
3. Living in Western Canada? Then drop off your e-waste at London Drugs. This electronics and pharmacy chain even accepts hardware purchased elsewhere for a nominal fee—$5 for a laptop, $10 for a desktop.
4. Consider returning your hardware to its retailer or manufacturer. Most national electronics retailers use reputable recyclers, as do manufacturers like Dell, Apple, and HP, which all have programs that allow you to mail back discontinued hardware.
5. Here’s one option that’s so easy, it doesn’t even require you to find a recycler: reducing. “Most of us who email and surf the web don’t need anything more powerful than a Pentium III,” says Vancouver reBOOT general manager Robert Gilson. So think twice before you buy your next cellphone or laptop. You’ll do the environment—and your wallet—a favour.

Gurdas Maan had to do a makeup concert on Monday after police shut down his Sunday night show in Calgary.

12,000 people showed up at the Telus Convention Centre in Calgary on Sunday night to see a concert by Punjabi singer Gurdas Maan. According to the Calgary Herald, about 10 of those concertgoers were wearing Kirpans, the ceremonial dagger worn by some observant Sikhs. When security guards at the venue refused those people entry, citing the blades as the reason, there was some, shall we say, disagreement about the sensibility and sensitivity of this decision. Views were expressed, opinions aired, and it ended with the police shutting down the whole concert at 9:30 pm, arresting a bunch of people, and dispersing the crowd into the night.

Some of you will remember that we already settled the whole Kirpan issue in 2006, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled (in Multani v.Commission scolaire Marguerite‑Bourgeoys) that wearing the Kirpan fell under the protections of reasonable accommodation in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and therefore a 12 year old student could wear his Kirpan in class, despite the fact that his school had a no-knives rule. Not all knives are created equal, the court decided. Some of them are religious symbols, and we protect people’s religion around these parts. If you can wear a Kirpan to math class, wearing one to a pop concert isn’t a big deal.

Listen: Gurdas Maan’s “Gur Ka Darshan Dekh Dekh Jeeva”

It appears that the Telus Convention Centre bouncers didn’t get the memo. Not that we expect all concert bouncers to be totally up to speed on their constitutional law all the time, sure, but really: a handful of old guys attending a concert with their families? For this you shut down a concert by “India’s Michael Jackson,” as the Calgary Herald calls him? Let’s display a little common sense, shall we?