The Darker Shade of Beauty!

Photo by Sabel Blanco on Pexels.com

“Which cleanup do you want?” The new branch manager at the beauty salon asked.

“I will go with rejuvenation one.” I replied.

“But I would recommend Instafair.” She replied back.

I smiled and insisted on the rejuvenation one and she sent a beauty specialist inside the facial room to do my cleanup.

The one hour of my face message which should have been an experience to relax and clean my skin turned into a mission to make it look fairer. I was offered to buy the endless range of products that promised to make my skin a few shades lighter.

The funniest advice was skin peel off. I was told that few layers of my skin would be ripped off and I would look visibly fairer within three months.

I thanked her for the kind suggestions and politely declined to buy any of the products that she offered.

While on my way back home, I looked closely inside the rare view mirror of my car and appreciated how beautiful I looked. My dusky complexion gave an edge to my overall personality. It made my eyes shine brighter and made my smile looked prettier that what it actually was.

“You are different and exotic kind of beautiful”, I recalled someone telling me a few years back.

I put the car into first gear and pushed the accelerator. I got out of the parking, wore my sunglasses and turned on the radio. The song that played almost on every radio station was “Kaala chashma” from an upcoming Bollywood movie. It said black shades look gorgeous on fair face. I checked myself out and found out that it looked equally good on my dark face too. I ignored the song and moved forward.

It was my cousin’s wedding two days after and I had to pick up my altered dress from the designer. I tried my black-beige dress on and came out to have a closer look in the full mirror. One milky white girl trying a yellow and red dress made a face and insisted on trying a similar piece that I was wearing.

She was visibly upset by the fact that an exactly similar dress wasn’t available; rather a reverse combination was available wherein the blouse was beige and skirt was black. She didn’t like that combination as she thought that the beige color on the front will bring down her fair complexion while the black color will enhance it.

She advised me to try the reverse combination as she thought it will suit me better. I declined, made the balance payment and moved ahead.

On the way back home, I thought about my childhood. When I was a kid, I wondered why my complexion didn’t match the other girls I played with. Some people told me that it was because I came from hell, I belonged to the devil community in my earlier birth. The thought amused me now.

I was grown up in a joint family full of beautiful and fair people, my mother and me being the darkest ones. My mother was always conscious of her skin tone and no one ever left a chance to make her feel worse about it. I grew up in the shelter of her insecurities. She felt guilty at times that I took her dark complexion.

Almost all our relatives and family friends suggested tricks to make my skin lighter. Apply “Curd and gram flour”, or “Milk and bread”, or “Turmeric and milk cream” and the list went on. When nothing worked, one of them suggested offering egg plants to Lord Shiva’s idol every Monday to get a clear and fair complexion which too was a failed attempt to make my skin fair.

I applied endless tubes of Fair and Lovely, and other skin products to bring down my skin tone. In turn, they made my skin look pale, uneven and prone to acne.

I felt ugly and pushed myself to work harder and harder, but nothing could fill for my low self esteem.

Even when I got into a relationship and challenged the way I was being treated, I was told that I wasn’t beautiful and the relationship is a favor to me. That was rather the breaking point of everything.

It took me a while to realize that I was sub-consciously rejecting myself and other people’s reaction was only a by-product of my own attitude towards the way I looked.

While I was on this journey, a lot of friends offered their comforting reassurance, sometimes in form of a smile, sometimes in form of compliments and sometimes in the form of the beautifully crafted lines below.

You are beautiful.

Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.

Get off the scale!

I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see the one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life.

It’s true; the scale can give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life.

You are beautiful

I pushed myself out of the memory land and reached home with a smile on my face after reading the screenshot of the lines above, yet again.

I don’t care anymore if I pass the shade card test before picking up my favorite color’s dress. I represent the darker side of beauty and totally love being there.

So, all the beautiful people out there keep calm and get off the scale!