Appearance; you see people following trends,  keeping up with 'the look' to appeal to the Appearance. The other day one of my professors questioned the class, "How much do you people think that racism does exist in India?". Interesting discussion followed this question. The question of colour does not exist in India or maybe should not exist in India (at least not regarding colour). I mean aren't we the people who call out the darker dusky colour scared and beautiful? If not, what exactly we mean when we say "श्याम रंग सुन्दर!"? The peripheral aspects of accepting the dusky colour may or may not be reaching the socials we have created. I will not talk about the cliche beauty that our cinema has created out there. It is just a question of conscience that if no violin plays when one happens to be loved, isn't the fact that the female protagonists have to be the "gori", we have been talking about?

In the era of us fighting for queer rights, we somehow are still stuck with the fair skin colour mentality. Being a dusky brown girl, I know I can say a lot about wrongs and rights of having to own more melanin. But at the same time what most people fail to see is that I myself have been obsessed with the fair skin colour.

As a child, I remember going for a shower and closing my eyes to pray there that when I open my eyes after I will turn into a beautiful fair little girl. And guess what? I did not. That doesn’t mean I stopped doing it, I kept believing that a magic spell will happen someday. It happened pretty late by then I was already in a pit of complexes. Hiding from cameras, putting Fair and Lovely, not smiling often and much crueler stuff is all I did to myself growing up. And now that I am old enough to understand that I was beautiful as I was, I don't think I am left with positive embarking memories of me in my childhood.

It was about a decade ago, that I bawled my eyes out one day because all I can feel at the time was dejection. So I went to my father saying that I feel ugly. He asked, "why do you say so?". I explained because I am not fair enough to be called pretty. He said, "Why do you think all these brown actresses have so much fan following? Do you think people are stupid enough to follow them around if they are ugly? And both your parents are brown you will obviously be brown too".

I pretty much understood his point of mentioning it. But it did not make me feel less ugly. All those possibilities of me being the ugly duckling in this life were already set in my brain.

All those schooling years I kept hiding behind, always trying not to get clicked. Never clicked one picture of mine. Unfair, isn't it?

All those family meetings where the unknown aunties used to make compensating comments like my facial features are fine only if I was a bit fairer it would have been better. I mean, what am I supposed to do with those compensations? People generally do not understand how much it affects a person (a child, might I add) when they receive such wishful comments. Comments on how a random person who is not related to me anyways wishes I was a bit fairer. Unfair, isn't it?

We don't understand and think of it as a casual habit to comment about someone's appearance. For instance, in my case, I have built this habit of comparing myself to others. Any denial and my first question is, "Am I not pretty enough?". I know that I have been self-sabotaging myself long enough and I need to stop. But the remarks have been so deeply rooted in me that it is taking much more power than I thought it would to accept myself for who I am.

For every compliment attached with an "if", comes together a lot of self-doubts. To put derogating statement takes no strength whereas a self-compliment takes so much power to you. Unfair, isn't it?

.    .    .