A dream to be an Actress – Chapter 3 – The color of my skin
You can read the previous chapter here! Chapter 2 – Baby Shalini
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When I was in my fourth grade, my dad was transferred to the BOLLYWOOD city “Mumbai” (Bombay back then) and we had to shift there. I wasn\’t ready for such a big change and was disappointed to move from Lucknow to Mumbai as I had to leave my school, friends, house with whom I have spent almost my whole life until then.
After few days in Mumbai, I started liking the place. I was put in a reputed institution school. It had a very good education system. It had so many extracurricular activities right from swimming, acting to horse riding.
I remember the first day I went to the new school, my mom put me a fountain pony and big bindi, I entered the class and all started laughing as even most of the teachers avoid keeping bindi there. All the students in the class were speaking in English fluently and the English as very sophisticated and I was still not out of the multiple languages I hear every day like Hindi, English, and Tamil.
As days passed by, I found the reason why people were laughing at me every day ever since I joined and spoke to themselves when I entered. It was my bindi and that looked funny to them. So, I told my mom, I will not keep bindi and I will leave my little hair open.
Due to all this mockery out of my dressing and appearance, I had to do something to prove others that was I was special in some way and education gave me a hand to me. I was smarter and intelligent and put on a lot of hard work and I stood class first in my fifth standard.
This gave me the confidence and got me many new friends. I entered my 6 the standard with a bunch of friends. I had a big gang, we used to celebrate birthday parties in Pizza Hut. We used to go to nearby gardens, shopping mall and used to enjoy our weekends. There was a girl in our gang named Urmi, she used to be my best friend. Her father was a growing director in the Bollywood industry. She used to tell me stories that used to happen in the shooting spot. She was just like me and had a great interest towards extracurricular activities like Singing, Dancing, and Acting.
Every year in our school, we used to have a Theatre festival which had skit performance & dance performance. Every year I participated without fail. We had to pay 800 Rupees for rent for the costume of the ten minutes dance. I wasn\’t used to buying dresses that costly but, my parents let me rent the costly dress because thy wanted me to pursue my interests and they have always used to encourage me to participate in such events.
I used to get many appreciations for the dance and acting that I do during the theater festivals. As at that time my parents used to allow me for all activities, I thought they would have changed and thought of just seeing their reaction so told a lie that Urmi’s father wants me to play a small character in his movie. Immediately my mom told me “No”, and then she gave a pause and she explained to me that Acting is a very difficult job, you are very good at studies so you will get a good job in office. I felt disappointed and even the child in me thought, if I was not so good at studies then maybe my parents would have allowed me.
Then our sections were changed and my whole gang was in the other section and I was put in another one. In that class, I found my best friend of my life Abinaya. Maybe because she was a Tamilian, we had many similar tastes and liking. We used to talk, talk and talk for the whole day about cinema, serial, actor and actress. We knew every new film, serial and gossips in our mother tongue, in which I was very comfortable with, by then.
Due to constantly looking at TV, I got short sight and had to wear spectacles and also, I had braces on my teeth. This brought down my confidence a bit but the smartness I showed in studies and my interest in extracurricular activities kept me strong.
In my 9th grade, I was practicing for a group dance to be performed in the theater festival of that year. There were two main dancers and we used to dance behind. Two weeks before the event, the main dancer got a sprain on her ankle and was put on bed rest. Luckily, I was replaced to be the main dancer. Similar to my experience in my fourth standard, I thought this replacement would let me get a bigger appreciation and I decided to put on efforts to give out my best dance performance as the lead dancer. But, what really happened changed my whole attitude in life.
The male lead dancer was a Kashmiri and was a star in our school, every girl used to be a fan of him and his dance, I was super excited to dance with him. He spoke to me really well and appreciated me for the dance and we practiced together and I was really very excited for the event.
But, just two days before the event, the actual lead girl came back and said that she was completely fine and is ready to perform at the event. It was a shock for me but I made myself calm. After practice when we left, I had left my bottle in the practice room so I had to come back and hear the heartbreaking thing ever. It was the Kashmiri boy whom I was a big fan of. He said to the lead girl, “Thank God you came back, you are my best pair, if I would have done that event with her, it would have been like a Black and White picture and also, I would always be wondering if, in the middle of the dance, her specs may fall”.
I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down. I felt so bad. I ran to Abinaya and told her everything. She consoled me but nothing could make me normal. That day made me come out of my dreamy world and made me feel so bad and even think that as I am of a darker shade, I was not so beautiful like other girls. Also, the dark girl with specs and braces.
It was then I took my mom\’s words seriously and forgot my dream to act, dance, sing and I started concentrated on excelling in my studies. But, what you have deeper in your heart, you will never forget and the dreams do not disappear but just hide for the right time.
I wish now, I knew the things that were going to happen in my future and the people I am going to meet in my future. Also, I now feel I should have been more matured and should have thought through things with an open mind rather than like those girls in Fair and Lovely and Fairever ads that feel inferior for their natural color and try futilely to change it. If I have, I wouldn\’t have taken this incident this serious and let it hurt me more than it deserved for most of the days of my life.
As beautiful, talented, and successful Nandita das says in almost every interview,
—-
When I was in my fourth grade, my dad was transferred to the BOLLYWOOD city “Mumbai” (Bombay back then) and we had to shift there. I wasn\’t ready for such a big change and was disappointed to move from Lucknow to Mumbai as I had to leave my school, friends, house with whom I have spent almost my whole life until then.
After few days in Mumbai, I started liking the place. I was put in a reputed institution school. It had a very good education system. It had so many extracurricular activities right from swimming, acting to horse riding.
I remember the first day I went to the new school, my mom put me a fountain pony and big bindi, I entered the class and all started laughing as even most of the teachers avoid keeping bindi there. All the students in the class were speaking in English fluently and the English as very sophisticated and I was still not out of the multiple languages I hear every day like Hindi, English, and Tamil.
As days passed by, I found the reason why people were laughing at me every day ever since I joined and spoke to themselves when I entered. It was my bindi and that looked funny to them. So, I told my mom, I will not keep bindi and I will leave my little hair open.
Due to all this mockery out of my dressing and appearance, I had to do something to prove others that was I was special in some way and education gave me a hand to me. I was smarter and intelligent and put on a lot of hard work and I stood class first in my fifth standard.
This gave me the confidence and got me many new friends. I entered my 6 the standard with a bunch of friends. I had a big gang, we used to celebrate birthday parties in Pizza Hut. We used to go to nearby gardens, shopping mall and used to enjoy our weekends. There was a girl in our gang named Urmi, she used to be my best friend. Her father was a growing director in the Bollywood industry. She used to tell me stories that used to happen in the shooting spot. She was just like me and had a great interest towards extracurricular activities like Singing, Dancing, and Acting.
Every year in our school, we used to have a Theatre festival which had skit performance & dance performance. Every year I participated without fail. We had to pay 800 Rupees for rent for the costume of the ten minutes dance. I wasn\’t used to buying dresses that costly but, my parents let me rent the costly dress because thy wanted me to pursue my interests and they have always used to encourage me to participate in such events.
I used to get many appreciations for the dance and acting that I do during the theater festivals. As at that time my parents used to allow me for all activities, I thought they would have changed and thought of just seeing their reaction so told a lie that Urmi’s father wants me to play a small character in his movie. Immediately my mom told me “No”, and then she gave a pause and she explained to me that Acting is a very difficult job, you are very good at studies so you will get a good job in office. I felt disappointed and even the child in me thought, if I was not so good at studies then maybe my parents would have allowed me.
Then our sections were changed and my whole gang was in the other section and I was put in another one. In that class, I found my best friend of my life Abinaya. Maybe because she was a Tamilian, we had many similar tastes and liking. We used to talk, talk and talk for the whole day about cinema, serial, actor and actress. We knew every new film, serial and gossips in our mother tongue, in which I was very comfortable with, by then.
Due to constantly looking at TV, I got short sight and had to wear spectacles and also, I had braces on my teeth. This brought down my confidence a bit but the smartness I showed in studies and my interest in extracurricular activities kept me strong.
In my 9th grade, I was practicing for a group dance to be performed in the theater festival of that year. There were two main dancers and we used to dance behind. Two weeks before the event, the main dancer got a sprain on her ankle and was put on bed rest. Luckily, I was replaced to be the main dancer. Similar to my experience in my fourth standard, I thought this replacement would let me get a bigger appreciation and I decided to put on efforts to give out my best dance performance as the lead dancer. But, what really happened changed my whole attitude in life.
The male lead dancer was a Kashmiri and was a star in our school, every girl used to be a fan of him and his dance, I was super excited to dance with him. He spoke to me really well and appreciated me for the dance and we practiced together and I was really very excited for the event.
But, just two days before the event, the actual lead girl came back and said that she was completely fine and is ready to perform at the event. It was a shock for me but I made myself calm. After practice when we left, I had left my bottle in the practice room so I had to come back and hear the heartbreaking thing ever. It was the Kashmiri boy whom I was a big fan of. He said to the lead girl, “Thank God you came back, you are my best pair, if I would have done that event with her, it would have been like a Black and White picture and also, I would always be wondering if, in the middle of the dance, her specs may fall”.
I couldn’t stop the tears rolling down. I felt so bad. I ran to Abinaya and told her everything. She consoled me but nothing could make me normal. That day made me come out of my dreamy world and made me feel so bad and even think that as I am of a darker shade, I was not so beautiful like other girls. Also, the dark girl with specs and braces.
It was then I took my mom\’s words seriously and forgot my dream to act, dance, sing and I started concentrated on excelling in my studies. But, what you have deeper in your heart, you will never forget and the dreams do not disappear but just hide for the right time.
I wish now, I knew the things that were going to happen in my future and the people I am going to meet in my future. Also, I now feel I should have been more matured and should have thought through things with an open mind rather than like those girls in Fair and Lovely and Fairever ads that feel inferior for their natural color and try futilely to change it. If I have, I wouldn\’t have taken this incident this serious and let it hurt me more than it deserved for most of the days of my life.
As beautiful, talented, and successful Nandita das says in almost every interview,
\”India is too obsessed with white skin and Magazines, TV, cinema — everywhere being fair is synonymous with being beautiful.\”
Being personally affected by this foolishly, I can relate to it and I feel, the change has to be brought down in people\’s mindsets in this regard and even this day, I keep that in mind and try doing my part in bringing a change in people\’s racist minds and bring girls out of the trauma they are in just for what they was born with.
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