Attitudinally Incompatible – Is that you or the society?

Born and brought up in a well-to-do and not so conservative family with some great friends around all the time, I hardly imagined that vitiligo could ever act in my life at any point of time in any way. My confidence, social and professional life not even a bit was touched on by this. I loved myself and my life and that is even today. I never associated myself with any vitiligo groups or awareness platforms, and infact always distanced myself from people sharing their experiences and extending their sympathies.
 

However, I stumbled upon some startling thought processes amongst us with regards to Vitiligo. Most shockingly it was the young, so called broad-minded, “cool”, educated and the well placed generation that actually made me retract and think where are we really standing today. It was only after  this that I decided to be more vocal about it.

Discrimination against vitiligo affected people unfortunately does exist as a bitter truth, but predominantly in the less privileged section of the society. But what was even more shocking is those who are well-aware, well-educated are actually the ones ducking from it.  That could either be in the form of denial to acceptance of the way they are, shying from it, ignoring it under the pretext of busy life and being less vocal about vitiligo.

Just putting down my observations here, but I find that boys are more prone to inferiority complex than girls. They find it more difficult than girls to come to terms with reality. They shy off from what the situation demands.  

Well, this is the case with those affected with vitiligo. I see that they are struggling for self-acceptance. What about the rest of the society that thinks it has come a long way and shed behind days of blind beliefs and believes that today’s society is with modern views. Well, then you need an introspection ! Because the truth is you don’t bestow the status of a normal person to a vitiligo affected person till date. I have seen several examples supporting this.  

I recently attended a vitiligo awareness event wherein a doctor was invited to address the gathering. She confessed that inspite of being a doctor who knows its just an aesthetic skin disorder with no health implications, and although she thought she was open minded, she realized that day that she wasn’t. She would not have probably allowed her son to marry a vitligo affected girl till the day she attended that event. The event served as an eye-opener to her and that she needs to reset her thoughts towards vitiligo.

My dear friends, I urge one and all to break this mindset. I want you to think are you really open-minded? Do you really deserve to be called a modern day society? Introspect...