As a child, I was obsessed with fairness, just like everyone else around me. Call it conditioning or just general social influence, because everybody would talk about it, but I wanted to be fair too. I didn’t look like my parents, who are both fair – I was comparatively darker. You know how kids can be – they can get pretty mean. And it isn’t just the children; it’s the grown-ups too. There would be plenty of unfavorable comparisons and well-meaning family friends and relatives would point out that I didn’t look as fair as my mother.
At first, I let these attitudes get to me. I would try all sorts of stuff to look fairer. Funnily enough, I never actually went to the fairness creams, though. Instead, I would try different homemade face packs. Of course, it didn’t help that I wasn’t consistent with their use because I would get bored fairly fast. (laughs)
Later on, my attitude towards my complexion changed. However, I did notice it a lot amongst my friends, especially as we entered our teens and became conscious of the opposite sex. Whenever there were such interactions, for some reason, that ‘ gora’ word used to stick.
At one point in time, my self-confidence was also bruised by the fact that I was overweight for much of my childhood. When I turned 16 or 17, I started losing all that weight and this changed my outlook. At this point, I realized that skin color didn’t really matter. In college, I even did a little bit of modeling and my complexion wasn’t a hindrance at all. I realized that I liked myself as I was. I didn’t really give a damn what others thought. This was me, this was who I was; they could take it or leave it.
Of course, there were practical considerations too. I was living in a hostel on a tight budget and didn’t really have the money to buy some stupid cream that would do what – give one some mental satisfaction, probably? I did earn some money from the modeling but I had better things to blow it up on (laughs).
With time my concerns shifted towards more meaningful things. These days, I’m extremely careful about my skincare regime. The one thing I always make sure of is that I pick up products that have no whitening in them. If you go to any retail stores, you’ll find that most of the topical applications are fairness-based or have whitening. I research products online before I buy any of them and am very careful to type ‘creams without fairness’ in Google. My skin is fairly sensitive so I have to be careful anyway. But I’m very clear about the fact that I don’t want a ‘fairness’ product anywhere near me. I’ve moved beyond shade cards.
Director of Sales, Viacom 18