Being A Brown Daughter: When I Was Asked To Try Skin Whitening Home Remedies

One of the words my grandma used to describe every time a relative visited us was 'sanwli'. I was born with a wheatish complexion that most Indian girls are born with. Interestingly, it was only when I reached my teens, I understood what being 'sanwli' meant. It means a girl or a woman with a brown or dark complexion, I only realised it wasn't okay to have a brown complexion in India.

Growing up, my grandma made sure I used dahi-haldi, besan, and chokar among other home remedies every day to whiten my skin naturally. Every weekend, my daadi would make a face pack using skin-whitening ingredients, ask me to apply it generously and keep it for 30 minutes. It became a part of my routine.

Fair Skin For The Win

"Padhne me toh achi hai, rang pakka hai bas" (she is good at studies but her skin colour is dark), my grandmother would often tell this to our close family members at weddings and parties. My parents, both brown-skinned, never really bothered about my skin colour. Besides, they refrained from commenting back on my grandma's statements about my complexion. On days she wouldn't feel okay, she would ask my mother to work on my skin colour or I would have problems finding a good allaiance for marriagewhen I am of age.

Through my teens, I had a different notion of beauty, I was brown and it wasn't good. I remember using fairness creams making it big in the beauty market back then. I used a few tubes too. The conditioning was now deeply ingrained. Soon, I started worrying about skin colour because I felt it defined me.

Let me share another anecdote. I once went out shopping with my mother and she bought me a beautiful yellow, floral dress. My excitement knew no bounds, I came back home and quickly changed into it only to hear from my grandma that it made me look even darker. I can still vaguely recall that I didn't wear the shade for years post that day.

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'Zyada chai mat piya kar...rang kaala pad jaaega', is another advice I grew up with but it took me almost a decade to smell the obsession with skin colour.

Not Fair But Content

Today, I feel happy in my skin. However, over time, I have understood India's obsession with gori twacha (fair complexion). The idea was clear, if you aren't fair-skinned, something is wrong and if you are fair, you are the ideal person for everything. Another thing that caught my attention all these years was that people in India associate pride with skin colour. No wonder most matrimonial ads read, 'Wanted slim, homely, fair girl'.

What adds to the conditioning is our favourite Bollywood movies and their songs. White White face dekhe dilwa beating fast ... Tennu kaala chashma jachta hai gore mukhde pe.....chittiya kalaiyan ve, unfortunately, a lot of favourite Bollywood numbers idolise fair skin and feature our favourite, supposedly 'woke' celebrities. (Colourism in Bollywood)

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Today, fairness creams, serums, and face packs continue to be a big part of the beauty market. The purpose still is to get a promotion on the skin whitening shade card. I still wonder if colourism will ever come to an end. Maybe not, at least, not till the time we normalise all skin colours and understand that we are all worth celebrating and our complexion doesn't define us!