She is sitting in Coffee Day, a favourite spot for Mumbai high school students. “You OK, Nina?”, her friends ask as they arrive. They sit down laughing and order iced coffee and doughnuts. Next door, the Eros cinema is showing R... Rajkumar. Its stars, Shahid Kapoor and Sonakshi Sinha, are good-looking, happy and in love. Both are fair-skinned.
Nina is darker, not really black. “One of my aunts keeps offering to apply whitening lotion,” she says.
“One day, I said to her: ‘But Auntie, you’ve been putting on that stuff for the past 20 years and I’ve never noticed any difference. What’s the point?’” Memories well up. “I’ve always known I was dark-skinned. At school the little girls with fair skin were chosen to represent our class. Once one of my teachers even said: ‘You’re a good pupil, but you’re so black’.
“In the playground it was one of the main sources of discrimination. Even now, when I walk into a chemist’s the staff try and sell me whitening lotion without me even asking.” She sips her coffee and smiles. “Most of my women friends who post photos of themselves on Facebook whiten their teeth too.” She picks up her phone and skims through them, looking suddenly rather glum. “There is an obsession with fair skin in this country,” she said. Paleness is a sign of distinction and “superiority”. Full story...
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Nina is darker, not really black. “One of my aunts keeps offering to apply whitening lotion,” she says.
“One day, I said to her: ‘But Auntie, you’ve been putting on that stuff for the past 20 years and I’ve never noticed any difference. What’s the point?’” Memories well up. “I’ve always known I was dark-skinned. At school the little girls with fair skin were chosen to represent our class. Once one of my teachers even said: ‘You’re a good pupil, but you’re so black’.
“In the playground it was one of the main sources of discrimination. Even now, when I walk into a chemist’s the staff try and sell me whitening lotion without me even asking.” She sips her coffee and smiles. “Most of my women friends who post photos of themselves on Facebook whiten their teeth too.” She picks up her phone and skims through them, looking suddenly rather glum. “There is an obsession with fair skin in this country,” she said. Paleness is a sign of distinction and “superiority”. Full story...
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