While visiting relatives when I was younger, everyone would lament about the 'dark-skinned daughter of such a beautiful mother'.
Tag: colourism India
Big Fat Wedding
A poem on the blatant body-shaming a person has to endure when they do not fit within the ideal 'conventional beauty standards'.
Reimagining Aesthetics: The Trouble With Lookism
How beauty biases are reinforced in many ways, including at the workplace.
‘Sthaayi’: A 15-Year-Old’s Zero-Budget Film on Caste-Based Discrimination in Kerala
A Class X student and an aspiring filmmaker from Kochi shot a 46-minute-long feature film that highlights discrimination based on caste, class, colour and religion prevalent in Kerala.
‘She is Dark’: Marriage Prospects, Labels and Society’s Undying Expectations
I am an ordinary soul with an ordinary yearning – a yearning to be seen as a person, not a label.
Colourful Conversations
I haven't told my little sister that Fair and Lovely has buckled under pressure, but will she ever believe she is beautiful, or that dark can be divine?
Why the Fair & Lovely Rebrand is Too Little, Too Late
Fair & Lovely’s messaging over the years has always perpetuated skin colour as a measure of a woman’s worth. That damage will not be undone so easily.
‘You Are Not Alone’: Letter to My 10-Year-Old Self
I know how tough it is to be the only dark-skinned girl in class.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Once upon a time in a land far, far away, a young girl encounters the gatekeepers of beauty.