This Independence Day, I'm Embracing Beauty Beyond Colonial Ideals

"Ae kali kaluti!" "Gulaab Jamun!" "Oh, you must apply a fairness cream, or apply loads of makeup because of being darkskinned!" I am sure so many beautiful Indian girls must have heard these notions directed towards them, forcing them to believe that they are unworthy in their natural beauty and need to transform into someone more 'admirable'. Rather, if we phrase it better, be more idealistic to meet societal standards, to be 'desirable' enough to be an ideal daughter. 

We live in a country that has glorified being fair in the media and representation so much that we forget the majority of our people have radiant brown skin. The one that glistens so brightly under the gleaming aura of the sunlight, the one that was worshipped by our gods.

I, too, hail to be a brown girl with dark skin, and no, there has been no poetic justice to the stride of my life that tied me to having luscious brown skin. My shade of brown skin kept me guessing myself for a long time in my quest to find myself, often making me question my entire existence until I finally found my reckoning. 

When the World Told Me Fair Was the Only Beautiful

In my early days of childhood innocence, I would watch my mother and aunt incessantly apply creams and get beauty treatments done to appear fair-skinned. I grew up watching advertisements of Fair and Lovely, where the cream appeared to be a magic potion that would make you Snow White with one use of it and tadaaa! Truth being told, I would actually fall for it and secretly apply the cream in the mirror, thinking to myself, I will be the lead of a fairytale and my prince charming would come and sweep me off my feet. 

The little girl with a ponytail didn't know that her dream would remain a dream, not being able to think of a future where she would flourish while being dark skinned. Only to forge her fairytale while being darkskinned and falling in love with herself. I would often compare myself to my fair-skinned cousins when they would visit me. Well, I would compliment them on how good they looked, and wistfully speaking, they should have returned the favour. Alas, they would make fun of me, and they would garner all the praise, while I never received any compliments. 

If there were a pretiness scale, I would always come in the lowest scale, being called a gulaab jamun in the sea of rasgullas was often a very common practice in my extended family meetings.

There were times when I often shied from looking in the mirror, like I were too ugly to even be looked at. And of course, I heard people consoling me while telling me that my shining brown skin is a testament to my vigour of playing in the sun and enjoying my childhood to the fullest. 

But truth be told, the damage had been done, I already felt too conscious of my skin and being a teenager, the consciousness turned into an insecurity that gnawed within my psyche and engulfed my entire confidence. This led to me being bullied for being dark-skinned, and I still vividly remember crying to god in my room, to change my skin tone, to for once be deemed beautiful and someone having a crush over me. That is how pain makes you question your worth; it makes you doubt yourself, and if you ask, 'Are you still affected by it?' I would honestly say yes. Why else would I still be writing about it?

The boys at school would often call me too undesirable, too ugly to even look at. I once wore a yellow salwar suit to school for a function, and everyone started comparing me to a 5-star bar. That is when I started to hate light colours, like the normalcy of being dark skinned and enlcothing myself in the brightness of the colours I loved was something so abysmal. 

Finding Gold in My Own Shade of Brown

As I moved out of school, I would still be afraid of my brown skin. Like I had sinned, the comments of ones I grew up with and the school experiences grew their essence in me, I would still mentally prepare myself and prepare an emotional armour every time I left my house.

I hated clicking photographs as they would enlighten the world with my darkness, and every time the photos came home, I would carry the grief like a silent lump in my throat. But with time, there was a shift in my mindset, and I started writing. I started finding my worth in things outside of how I looked, in something deeper than the surface. 

I was deeply inspired by Priyanka Chopra, who honed her skin like it was gold and held her head high with confidence in the world of global cinema. Another woman who inspires me is the Bridgeton Star Simeone Ashley, who holds her dark skin like the most beautiful shade of beauty in the land of whiteness. Her portrayal of Kate Sharma and the representation of brown skin in a British show shifted something in me subtly, but dawning like the sun at its rise. 

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The sheer acceptance of brown skin in a land prone to colourism and racism, where white skinned beauties are the norm, made me realise how the world is slowly embracing diverse beauty forms while our country is still grappling to feel comfortable in its divine brown skin. 

Witnessing the women of my origin embracing their heritage- brown skin fostered the learning that brown skin doesn't need any concealing to be called beautiful. 

It is the authenticity of your true light that makes you shine the most. And after that, I wore what I loved, and everything shifted for me; I no longer hid myself under the tones of black or heaps of makeup to look beautiful. 

It was powerful. It was rebellious and is still an act of rebellion as I gush over my reflection, not paying any heed to the external chatter of what I should ideally look like. My act of independence is loving myself so loudly and audaciously in the authenticity of my entirety that nothing can make me question my worth. 

To all the brown skinned divas, I hope you turn up the notch of loving yourself, so radically that the lack of admiration of others doesn't bother you. I hope you know that you are beautiful, loved and amazing just the way you are.

Article by Hridya Sharma | Views expressed by the author are their own.