I
was leisurely editing my prospective Facebook profile picture when a wonderful
friend of mine sent me an article on how beautiful dark skin is. Well, she
usually sends me stuff on this topic to boost my confidence and God forbid if someone
argues otherwise, you can see the vehemently protective side of her. The
article was what inspired this blog post in the first place. I have never
voiced my experiences extremely openly before. But as I read it, I realized
that speaking of my journey could actually inspire many women and men out there
who have been endowed with an extra dollop of melanin like me.
To
foreign eyes, India might be a country of perfectly homogeneous brown people, but
the root reality is quite the opposite. Inside India, people fall within a
broader colour spectrum…ranging from pitch dark to wheatish to pale white. This
diversity in skin colour has created a hierarchy of beauty…a hierarchy that
claims that the fair skinned people are the paradigm of beauty, while the dark
skinned people are plain ugly. I was seriously unaware of this until I was in
the fifth grade. My fair complexioned classmates constantly clapperclawed my
skin shade. One of them used to sing “kalloo Jarawa Baratang” like a rhyme
almost every day on the school bus. The tune still haunts me sometimes. (Explanation:
Jarawans are beautiful and exotic Negroid native tribe of my island and
Baratang is the name of the jungle where their settlement dwells. You may
Google them for visual effects!) In the tenth grade, when I was at a house
warming party at a family friend’s place, one girl refused to drink tea when
offered and instead pointed at me and said, “I don’t want to drink tea because
I don’t want to look like her.” I didn’t understand what she meant until an
Auntie replied to her, “You don’t get dark by drinking tea.” And then the
evening continued peacefully as the Auntie gracefully smoothened the awkward
moment; but I just sat there quiet and embarrassed among a roomful of people,
wishing for Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility.
I
loathed the sun with a passion. I hated going out. Every time someone pitched a
plan to picnic on the beach, I’d come up with clever pranks to ruin the plan.
I’d do anything and everything to not go to the beach. Well, to this, my
friends from college are a huge witness. The amount of persuasion (sometimes
blackmailing) needed to get me on a train to Goa is almost equal to the money I
spend on shoes!
I
hated wearing white and black. White made my skin look darker while black
attracted comments like ‘saakshaat kaali maata’, ‘kalooty’, etc. I hated
clicking pictures in a poorly lit room because I knew that while the faces of
all my friends would show up in the picture, mine wouldn't Well, now one of my
best friends Anshul aka AnshOle has a huge collection of many such pictures of
mine and proudly posts it on social media every once in a while when he gets
bored with his totally useless and non – happening life. Well, I comment fake –
anger on it, claim that it will be avenged…then I post a nice pimply potato –
nose close – up shot of his face…people have a good laugh…call us by our famous
nickname – Tom and Jerry…him Tom, me Jerry…chapter closed…no self – esteem harmed…all
in good humour. To get to this state of mind and this attitude, trust me, I
swam an ocean of inferiority complex.
I
was not just a dark – skinned girl in the classroom, but a pariah since I was a
Tamilian. To my north Indian classmates, the definition of a Tamilian was this:
a dark – skinned person who eats only idlis and dosas and who speaks English
and Hindi with a drawling heavy Tamil accent. Luckily, I didn't have a Tamil
accent while speaking Hindi or English, so I was spared from any ridicule in
that department. Growing up in the Island that is proudly tagged Mini India, I
got used to Hindi. In a way, it became my first language, the language I am
most comfortable in. English followed. But Tamil was nowhere in sight. My skin
colour, the stereotyped Tamil culture and the people making fun of Tamil
accents pulled me away from anything Tamil. So much so that I could understand
what my parents said to me in Tamil but I couldn't reply to them in the same
language fluently. I didn't know how to speak Tamil properly and I didn't want
to. I didn't want to celebrate any Tamil festival or watch Tamil movies or
listen to Tamil songs. To feel good about myself, sometimes I looked down upon
my parents when they expressed their Tamil identity. During most of my teenage
years, I put on a mask, trying to hide where I came from. I told people I didn't know anything about the culture I belonged to so that they could think I
was just like them. At every chance I could, I tried withdrawing my affiliation
with my culture. Because I was brought up in a place where I experienced the
culture of my friends more than that of
my parents, I felt the culture I saw around me was somehow cooler and better
than the one I belonged to. I now know that it wasn't cooler or any better, but
just different. I didn't know it then. Back then, I just wanted to be light –
skinned so that I could be beautiful because the message was that anything that
was not fair was ugly.
Yet
at the same time, I wanted to be just as I was because I liked who I was and
also because I felt that the people making fun of dark – skinned people were
doing something insensitive and hurtful, that they were wrong. And I didn't want to change for the wrong people. Back then, even the TV advertisements for
fairness creams were about the dark – skinned girl failing to get the guy, get
the job, and get the life of her dreams. The idea was to make you buy into that
threatening future of never amounting to anything with the colour that coats
you, and then make you buy the magic cream that could give your life the right
amount of pinkish/ whitish glow it needs. If anything has changed in the
fairness cream industry since then, it is that today the advertisements are
less about making you feel bad about what colour you are born in and more about
fair – skinned girls aiming for empowerment and gender equality at the same
time being a visual delight to onlookers.
I
remember innocently asking a girl at school ‘Your
lips are so pink, do you apply lipstick?’ To which the girl replied ‘Your lips are so black, do you apply
koyla?’ Well, that little incident happened when I was in the seventh or eighth
grade. That cute little girl has grown to be a beautiful woman and she probably doesn't even remember this little incident that is so deeply engraved on my
mind. She is a friend on my Facebook Account and I’d like to thank her immensely
because that incident mercilessly dug out the other hidden talents in me. That
night, I filled my diary with all the hatred a twelve year old can conjure. But
as I wrote, I somehow unfortunately believed that I was an ugly duckling and
that, if I cannot be beautiful I had to shine some other way; but I simply had
to…have to shine! Instead of being intimidated by the fair – skinned bullies, I
researched the ways to outshine them in some other arena. I got good grades; I
became the first kid in my school to play keyboard and guitar in the School Assembly;
I read almost every book in my school’s library and State Library’s Children’s
section…I explored my sketching talent, picked on my creative side; I
participated in almost all the singing and writing competitions. Be it essay or
poem or story writing; I was there on the front row writing my heart out…I
brought fame to my school’s threshold. My school was proud to have me. I was
that silent girl who was absent minded and knew only a handful of people; but
every student in the school knew her name. Most importantly, I didn't let the
bullies find the satisfaction of belittling my culture. I started learning to
read and write Tamil. I started speaking to my parents only in Tamil. I began
addressing them Amma Appa instead of Mummy Daddy. Although I still am not
completely aware of everything about my culture, but I am not ashamed of it...In
fact, I am rather proud belonging to such a traditionally rich acculturation.
I wasn't satisfied yet. People who had the guts to make me feel small pointing
out my colour or culture still existed in my classroom and their bullying was
only getting more creative with each passing day. That was when I took this creative
lunacy to the next level. I wanted to be seen, yet be invisible. I decided to
send my poems and articles to certain magazine competitions and local
newspapers. I was persistent. After a year or so, I received a letter. It was
from the then Prime Minister of India Dr. Manmohan Singh praising my flair for
language English and thanking the gesture of having composed a poem on him as
well. At the age of fourteen, I was all over the local news. I had made my
point. My school was proud. My parents were proud. Now, at school, before
someone passed a comment on my skin, they hesitated. The next milestone was
nailing the Island Topper position in the All India Engineering Entrance Examination
and securing a seat in a prestigious college NIT, Bhopal. This one was
unexpected yet this was the most beautiful thing that has ever happened to me
till date. It was in this college’s premises that I was gifted with priceless
friends who made me realize that I was no ugly duckling. There was no
particular melodramatic turning point in my life. It was a gradual mutation. I
began working on my self – esteem. I swept the space within me where I once had
locked up pain. I kept writing about my dreams in my journal. I shut out the
voices of the world and listened to my wonderful friends and to myself, and
finally I heard what I always knew – I am beautiful.
I
taught myself confidence. I learned that not being ashamed is the first step
towards complete confidence about one’s self, one’s bones and flesh. So I
became open about my feelings instead of keeping them inside. I told my friends
when something hurt. I embraced having a voice. I must say, I could never have
done it without my friends. They were always there like a family…in every walk
of my life. There are few memories that people create only during their
childhood; my friends gave me those memories in my adulthood. They helped me
with everything that I felt less confident about; not just my skin colour…my
flakiness, my irresponsibleness my carelessness…everything. Right from getting
my ears pierced to riding a bicycle to a scooty to a 100 CC motorbike to RX 100…my
friends taught me self – reliance. My friends taught me everything. They made
me believe that I am not supposed to be playing the supporting role in my life,
I am the lead actress of my life and that I am to grow my own spine instead of hiding
behind their protection. They saw more than what I saw in the mirror every day.
I remember my friends fighting for me passionately whenever I was wronged…be it
social media or on the road or in the market square or in the campus, anywhere!
And later they’d scream at me for not standing up for myself. They never saw my
impulsiveness as a bane. They respected me for who I was. They taught me not to
change for any damn person in this world. They were there with truckloads of
logical crap whenever I was in the juncture where I had to take important life
changing decisions. They were still there when I heard them all and still did
whatever the hell I wanted to do in the first place. They were still hanging around
when I paid the consequences. AnshOle even has a special name for me –
Askhole…a person who constantly asks for your advice, yet always does the
opposite of what you told them. Though life sometimes used to get very
sarcastic, their humour and unconditional love kept me glued in one piece. Oh,
by the way, their wicked sense of humour wasn't restricted to anything; believe
me, they are an expert in cracking racist jokes. They taught me to laugh
through it. Statutory Warning: Please do not try cracking one if you aren't a friend;
’cause you’ll hear war cry! Together we redefined fun in the five years of
togetherness gifted to us and we still are so freaking awesomely on fire every
time we meet!
I
understood that being ashamed of how you look or where you belong is being
ashamed of your genes, being ashamed of your parents and their childhoods,
their struggles and their existence. It took years of practicing self – esteem
before my attitude towards my identity changed completely. Today at 24 years of
age, I am not ashamed. I don’t fear being seen. Today I can reject a
saleswoman’s attempts to sell me a new fairness product that promises to remove
the “dark spots” (that’s what they call my skin colour sometimes) or make the
Parlour woman see sense when she persistently tries to convince me to get that
Whitening Face Pack or answer people where I come from without being ashamed. I
still struggle with confidence sometimes, but it is the kind of struggle that
has nothing to do with my background, or looks, or skin colour. I don’t feel
inferior to fair girls anymore. I am not conscious of my looks while talking to
boys. I am no longer bitter towards those who hurt me in the past or those who
robbed me of a healthy self – esteem during my teen years. Today I am at peace
with all that. I now know that if I had the right amount of self – esteem and
power within me, then I no longer needed to avoid buying clothes in colours
such as white, yellow, orange and black – the colours that people said would
look too bright on me or too dull or too ugly. I realized that it was possible
for me to wear whatever colours I liked. I learned that if I had the right
amount of confidence and personality, I could pull off a neon – coloured top
just like Noemi Campbell.
Surprisingly,
my low self – esteem never hampered my dream of finding true love. Somehow I
always believed that there was a guy who was above the petty concepts of the
world, a guy to whom I would not be an exception to the hollow definition of
beauty, but to whom I will be an authentic part of beauty in its truest
essence.
This
colour consciousness among Indians and the resultant ragging doesn't attract
much attention in India since it doesn't qualify as racism. Also, Indian laws
provide equal rights to everyone irrespective of race, colour, caste, creed and
sex. So, colour consciousness is not part of the system or institution. It is
acceptable to make a dark – skinned person feel bad about his or her skin
colour because being light – skinned is what is preferred and damages to self –
esteem don’t count.
India
has not changed since I have grown up. It is still colour conscious. Its
fairness cream industry is still booming. Strangers still sometimes poke fun or
act plain nasty. But now I know which comments to react to and which ones to faze
out, for nothing can now change the way I see myself and the way I define
beauty.
I
now know that fair and dark are not two sides of a coin called beauty. Neither
of them are standards of beauty because beauty in its essence has no standards.
The only thing ugly in this world are thoughts and actions that rob us or
others of love, peace and joy. Everything else is…beautiful.
xOxo,
Jency
John Charles.
Architect
of her life and destiny.
