These are K-Jo’s children that he had by surrogacy. They are obviously very cute and beautiful and I’m very happy for him (I’m a huge supporter of surrogacy).
However it seems that they were fertilised with a white egg donor and while I don’t comment on personal choices; I don’t see why he couldn’t have chosen someone of his own race.
What I find strange about Hindutva is that they hate us (the Mughals & their Muslim spawn in India) but are so ambivalent/ almost slavish towards white people.
Classic example of divide & rule; as much as I believe in desi solidarity if a Pakistani or Persian had done such a thing I would not have approved. If one has no pride in one’s colour or heritage then what’s the point
Don’t get me wrong there is nothing wrong in falling in love with people of different races and have children with them; that’s a very beautiful thing. However to go out of one’s way and pull a Michael Jackson; to try and have super-Aryan children, strikes me as a complex too many.
Furthermore Karan has the onus of being one of the most emulated individuals in India and by somehow sending out the impression that white is right is not healthy for a society that is already ridden with colour complex. Roohi & Yash would have been just as lovely in a darker shade of brown..
who/what are you talking about? i have no idea.
u need to remember not everyone has your cultural referents.
lol Razib you are probably the only commentator in BP who doesn’t know who Karan Johar is – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karan_Johar
it probably would be a good post about Bollywood and brownness; familiarity with Hindi cinema is a big part of being Desi.. That would lead on to a discussion on the differences between being Brown and being Desi. I think different sides of the Atlantic stress different identities British Asians see their identity as cultural as well as racial whereas for South Asian Americans it’s probably far more racial.
anyway to cut a long story short; Karan Johan is probably the most influential media personality in Desidom..
I broadly agree with your critique of hindutva and its history-denying tendencies, however Karan Johar’s example seems besides that point- he is not a hindutva poster-boy by any stretch. Don’t you think it is just a general desi thing, not particularly hindutva?
Btw, Karan Johar knows better than most what will succeed in Bollywood, from the Punjabi & Afghan lineages of late 20th century (Kapoors, Khans) to the part-Indian part-European today (Katrina Kaif, Jacquiline Fernandez) to maybe Europeans pretending to be Indians in the future? Karan is doing his best for his kids’ future 🙂
Kareena Kapoor is a quarter Irish but that is not the point. Bollywood has foreign influence but the fact that South Indian & Bengali actresses (Rani, Kajol, Sri Devi, Hema Malini, Deepika Padukone) do so well disproves the point.
Bollywood shares the same aesthetic as much of South Asia in preferring Dark hair, dark eyes and fair skin but it doesn’t embrace “white” (more like light). However none of the Khans are Fair & Lovely; well Shah Rukh Khan certainly isn’t and he is arguably still the reigning King (though his film when Harry met Sejal was a total bomb).
The point is though having by having European children K-Jo sets an example to millions of Indians.
This isn’t a desi thing in that if a Pakistani had done the same thing I don’t think Pakistanis would be as forgiving. There is ALOT of Paki pride out there (it doesn’t mean that we don’t have the same colour biases or slavishness towards goras/Middle Easterners etc). It’s just that people wouldn’t stand for it.
A big reason as to why Fati and Zulfi Bhutto don’t get much traction in Pakistan is that they aren’t very Pakistani at all (3/4 foreign).
Also the point is that Hindutva selectively attack the Muslims while being very ambivalent about the English; seems odd to me..
Finally this isn’t a match between Indo-Pak; India is a far more advanced and tolerant society than Pakistan in virtually every way (tolerance as a concept is intrinsic to India, extrinsic to Pakistan) but I was not impressed by this at all..
However none of the Khans are Fair & Lovely; well Shah Rukh Khan certainly isn’t and he is arguably still the reigning King (though his film when Harry met Sejal was a total bomb).
they’re lighter than average for the typical south asian. i googled them. shah rukh khan looks colored the same as a lot of pakistanis i grew up with (or my family knew is more accurate). punjabis and mohajjirs.
Shah Rukh Khan’s ancestors are Pathans from Peshawar. I think that would explain the fair skin.
Yes perhaps that is true..
It is not clear what the consensus here regarding Shah Rukh Khan. Is he average desi in his skin color? Or can he pass off as middle easterner?
It seems fair-color of the skin trumps everything in south Asia in terms of human interactions.
Not necessarily – I think caste is super-operative in an Indian context as well whereas creed has an almost equivalent important in Pakistan.
Whatever India’s drawbacks may be; it is light years ahead of Pakistan in terms of toleration. The mob may destroy Babri Masjib but the Indian government won’t imprison innocent mothers (like Aasiya Bibi) for almost a decade.
The fundamental DNA of the two states are very different!
“The fundamental DNA of the two states are very different!.”
The wise politicians of the time divided a geographic region and a bunch of indistinguishable people and after 70 years we see them as people with different DNA in certain social aspects. If given enough time we will hear that TNT (two nation theory) was a robust proposal. Is it ironical or what?
I meant DNA in a different context; Freudian slip!
As someone said already, India prefers a lighter version of itself not whites. Karan Kapoor – the very English looking handsome son of Shashi didn’t get any traction in Bollywood as he looked too foreign.
And it is patently false that Bollywood is dominated by foreigners. Katrina is an exception and Jacqueline is a nobody. The reigning Kings and queens are very typically Indian looking just better looking than average – including the Khans and Kapoors. Many of these actors are medium.brown but due to post processing and lighting appear much lighter. But so do most average brides and grooms when photographed under the glaring lights that accompany video cameras. This lightening trend through lighting etc is somewhat recent and only started in the late 90s with Dil To Pagal Hai. Watch older movies from the 80s and 90s and most actors look quite brown.
Also one Karan Johar doesn’t make a trend. All cases of adoption etc I know of involve Indian kids. Indians in general are not too keen on even marriages of their kids to whites.
Yes agreed – that someone was me lol
Have you seen Pathans? People from Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province (used to be known as the much easier to say NWFP) are much more light-skinned compared to your average Indian. Shahid Afridi is an example.
Or your average Pakistani for that matter.. it’s interesting how Pakistanis are quick to appropriate the more Afghan-Pathan look rather than the more Desi-Punjabi look..
Yes NWFP is easier to say than KPK