I was looking at Monet’s Lady with a parasol for inspiration and then thought of this embroidered piece I made long ago. I embrodiery and playing with fabric scraps. Ok. Over to K.

“Haha, you look nothing like this!” responds my best friend, cheekily to the smiley I had sent him on Whatsapp. Ofcourse! I had used the ‘fair blonde’ girl smiley without thinking. In real life, I am the extreme left brown / black shade in Fair & Lovely’s shade card ad – I am the one with excessive melanin, the dark skinned Madrasi.

‘Why do you have to go volleyball coaching out in the sun again, don’t you realize you cannot tan any further?’ , ‘You have great features even though you are so dark’, ‘Beta I have brought you these advanced skin brightening treatment sets from abroad, specially for you, I can’t stand to see your mom worrying about you’ , ‘Do you know why S has suddenly started taking you to the school canteen with her & buys you chocolates everyday? Her crush is around the canteen at that time and she thinks you are a safe bet to have around her so that he can see how beautiful and fair S is when compared to your dark skin’ – Yeah, I have seen it all. From well meaning to plain mean types.

I took to all the cold remarks about my skin tone with a vengeance – I will study well and prove to everyone that I am smart, I am capable, I am a ‘good’ kid DESPITE being dark. Childhood thus went by happily till the tragedy that is teenage hit – an age when you start vying for that one smile or one look from the opposite sex. But hey, I was a double whammy as a teenager – dark skinned plus a short haired tomboy – the killer combo! Ridiculed sometimes, ignored mostly by guys both at school and college, I took to online chat rooms to find temporary solace in conversations with unknown strangers. I could be anyone in this illusional online world, fake names, fake photos, you get the drift. I was getting all the attention I so craved from the opposite sex which had been missing in real life. All was well until love happened, “You’ve got mail” movie type, with a stranger on the Internet. Before you start imagining the happy ending that this dark-skinned Meg Ryan had, sorry to ruin it, but I got stood up the first time we were to meet after a year of online dating and confessions of true love. Yeah, my supposed true love, Tom Hanks, took one look at me at the coffee shop and ran away! So much for the first breakup of my life and the years of depression that followed questioning why wasn’t I born blonde, fair and cute like Meg Ryan!

Fast forward ten years and two great ex-boyfriends who adored my ‘chocolaty’ sexiness, countless crazy friends and of course family who began to accept the real me (sounds like a cheesy Dove tagline), I am at a much better place and state of mind now. I confidently steer clear of skin whitening racks at supermarkets, I use sunscreen before I head out to a beach more out of fear of skin cancer than of a tan and I have a hearty laugh when I look at cliched matrimonial profiles seeking fair thin girls. My only regret? I wish I could tell my 13 year old self that “Darling, it doesn’t matter, not at all. Go pick that bright yellow piece you are eyeing for your birthday outfit. That sales guy is so wrong when he smirks and whispers that this colour won’t suit your dark skin baby!”

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