"Your Skin Is Not Dirt"

I found this incredibly powerful; coming from a culture where peroxide is set to skin and where actresses enter Bollywood the gorgeous colour of almonds and leave blanched. Where we look at the array of crèmes behind the counter at Gorima’s and wonder about whether we, too, should be using Golden Pearl.

Stop.

We are beautiful. 

If ever I’ve thought about a cause I could fight for – or see myself advocate close to home – it has to be the issue of the Indian female complexion. It was a topic as potent as the smell of peroxide.

I was in high school when a family member and I experimented with peroxide; it was a hideous smelling yellow powder that was applied to my skin – and it burned me. It hurt something awful. I had to wash it off within a few seconds of it touching my skin.

Looking back, I feel absolutely ashamed for all the times I’ve used Fair & Lovely, Golden Pearl or any of those terrible skin lightening creams. For what? Perhaps it was the murmur at the back of my mind at how everyone loved how fair my mother is; and how I did not match her yellow-white glow. Perhaps it was the realization that Rani Mukherjee, whom I saw a lovely caramel colour in one movie became an ivory beauty the next. Or, perhaps, it was the way that Bollywood lyrics idolised the ‘gori-gori’ fair glow of a lighter skinned beauty.

It was an issue I, thankfully, left behind in Durban.

When I got to Cape Town, I found myself walking. A LOT OF WALKING. The sun exposure was not avoidable at all. I could hear my mum chirping at the back of my mind – ‘Don’t walk in the sun, you’ll get so dark’ – but, what could I do? I had to live. I also learnt that sunblock has no bearing on whether your skin will tan, it just mitigates sun damage.

I think lots of girls realized this, too, and in doing so, we came to see how really unimportant the issue is. We joke about it, laugh about it while we walk from upper campus to lower campus, giggle at how the sun is tingling against us – but, the sad reality is, these jokes all have deeper origins. Darker ones, for a terrible, terrible pun.

So, to those ladies who are trying to look like almond milk.

Stop, sweetheart.

Chai comes in many shades.