Nawazuddin Siddiqui's Cryptic Tweet Hints at Dark Biases in Bollywood

It’s obsessed mostly with looks, glamour and big box office numbers. Bollywood can be tough on the ‘dark and not good looking’ even if they are so brilliantly versatile as Nawazuddin Siddiqui.

In a cryptic tweet, the Haraamkhor star has hinted just how difficult it has been for him to bag roles since everyone preferred actors with a fairer complexion.

"Thank you for making me realise that I cannot be paired along with the fair and handsome because I'm dark and not good looking, but I never focus on that," Nawaz tweeted on Monday night.

This tweet was in response to casting director Sanjay Chauhan who made a bizarre, racist comment revealing the process of casting the stars of the film Babumoshai Bandookbaaz. He said, “Keeping Nawaz in mind all other characters were taken on board. We can’t cast fair and handsome people with Nawaz. It would look so weird."

It’s a sort of U-turn for the actor, who only last year had said there was no racism in Bollywood and that the industry gave priority to talent over good looks.

Not too long ago, Bollywood actor Abhay Deol ribbed the likes of Shah Rukh Khan, Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan and John Abraham for featuring in ad campaigns that sell fairness creams and other such products. In a series of Facebook posts, Deol specifically chose campaigns that, subtly or blatantly, tried to sell the idea that being dark was not beautiful.

"No one at the top of their game in any field is going to tell you that it is demeaning, false, and racist. You have to see that for yourself, Deol wrote in a Facebook post.

"You have to stop buying into the idea that a particular shade is better than others. Unfortunately, if you look at matrimonial ads you will see how entrenched in our psyche this belief is. We even use the word 'dusk' to describe the color of someone's skin," he added.

He further suggested that "while an individual may not be able to change this attitude in his/her community, he/she can at least start with the family."

Deol began the series by taking a dig at the country’s obsession with colour saying that "we aren't a racist country and I'll prove it to you" and backed it with a series of posts.