Dearest Hindustan Unilever,
I will not Thank you for finally renaming Fair and Lovely and stopping the usage of words like lightening, brightening and all those synonyms. It was a cream that troubled my teenage years.
Being a dark skinned south Indian in north India, Kali-kalooti was my nickname. Yes, called by many of my school ‘friends’, this nick name became so normal that it stopped impacting me. Or so I believe. And to top it all, having an extremely fair skinned mother didn’t come to much help either. Sorry Amma, the colour of your skin is not your fault, but neither is the colour of my skin, my fault. There were umpteen times when I was asked directly to my face “She is your mother?” How come so much of a difference?” And the difference was not in personality, qualities or anything. It was just colour cause that’s all what they saw.
Random aunties, neighbours have walked to my mother and even upto me to say – Buy her Fair and Lovely. Put it in the morning and before going to bed. Her colour will improve. Like I am some wall, whose Pantone shade got mixed up, and a new paint would do wonders!
The cream did find a place in my house. Yes, it did because at that time, that age, I felt the colour of my skin was not ‘fair’ enough.
So yes, I am not thanking you for changing the name or stopping such discourse.
But I am glad that movements across the world have made discussions on how we treat people from our own country with different colours of skin!
I am glad that atleast there is one less product in the market which made me, and many girls like me, question the colour of their skin and which made me wonder why I was this shade of brown!
And I am more than glad that atleast now, many of us wonder why we never questioned such discrimination before and are opening up!
Your dark-skinned once forced-to-be consumer,
Vandana
| In just a few words.... | 