By Lamisa Chowdhury
This morning, my mom and I were watching a Bollywood documentary. She talked about Kajol’s transformation from an ugly duckling in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to the beauty we were watching being interviewed.
“It’s only because she got a bunch of skin treatments,” my mom remarks in Bangla, popping a kiwi into her mouth.
“কুচে কুচে কালো থেকে ধপ ধপে সাদা |”
I observe the documentary closely. It’s true. The screen flitted in and out of movie flashbacks and the present, there is a visible change in her skin colour from the woman today to her younger counterpart.
“Kajol was always pretty though. I wonder why she did it.” I think out loud, uncharacteristically. I rarely exert my opinions on celebrities – things I know not to be my business.
“Don’t worry, when we go to Bangladesh I can get a bit done for you as well.”
Amu smiles at me, her easy, nonchalant tone not missing the natural beats of conversational flow.
“What do you mean?”
I ask, half empty-headed. It doesn’t even register for me.
“Just to pale you up a bit. You know – like Kajol.”
“You’re joking!”
I get out in between laughs, this time in English.
“Why are you laughing at me? I’m serious,” she questions, also in English now, her tone half flabbergasted and half amused.
My nonsensical laughter stills to a diplomatic chuckle. “But Amu, I’m so pretty. What need would I have for skin treatments?”
“Even then – you could be a little bit prettier,” my mom says quickly.
“And what about what you said before?”
I don’t recall saying anything about being too dark. I sum up that it must have been from some silly exchange with my sister (who is lighter than me) that she overheard.
“It must have been a joke.”
She shakes her head; I decide that she must feel I’m up to my usual antics.
“I never know what you’re thinking – sometimes you say one thing that’s supposed to be a joke and another time you’re serious.”
I know that she didn’t mean any harm. The exchange definitely did not leave me hurt, but it did leave me contemplating. Here was my mother, who felt guilty about my brownness, and I could tell. Though we talk about being Bengali and Muslim, and how that makes us special and good and different, I know there is a corner of resignation in my mother’s mind. It is difficult to be beautiful in Amu’s world. Being a teenager in a country that did not even exist until recently, you’re barely significant, especially when white models with long legs and pale Bollywood stars like Kajol exist. We are not beautiful. Bengalis are not beautiful. There is little space for beauty when you have to strive and live far away from family.
She enjoys the fact that one of her daughters is “confident and outspoken,” like the other “Western women” she hoped we would be: successful and living, not just surviving, in a country full of strangers. Yet there is one thing she could not give us, one thing she feels guilt for: she is still regretful of our brownness.
It means that we will never be beautiful, only brown.
But what she doesn’t realise is that my brownness is the honey that enriches my very veins, as I tiptoe tentatively into the monsoon nights of Gitanjali. My brownness is Om Shanti Om; my brownness is আজ রবিবার; my brownness is a love of saris and the jangle of ornate bangles, tiklis and teeps – the mouth burning spice of unripened mangoes doused in Bengali mustard and chilli powder, shared in a single bowl between too many people. It shows in the way I sing Ek Tara Tui Desher Kotha with a little bit of laughter and a little bit of mischief, even though it is a patriotic folk song sung by an older woman whose voice is full of sombre longing.
My skin is sunkissed mahogany, with Shakespeare and Laura Ingalls Wilder mixed in with Japanese comics and English musicals. The colour of my skin is the molasses Nani would tip into my milk, reminding me that I am Rasha, but I am also Lamisa. She teaches me patiently how to write both versions in Bangla on a whiteboard.
I am so many things.
My brownness is the shame of brownness; my brownness is the rejection of brownness, until it moulded over into an iron gate that keeps me upright. It is the toughened, ancient gold of spirited hope, as I sit here and write to you, from my childhood table. The same Japanese rock music I listened to six summers ago once again blares in my ear, and I almost cry out of excitement – I am so happy to be. I am all at once 13, on the precipice of 20, as I realise I have lost none of my childhood curiosity, ambition, motivation, and hope. My brownness has kept it all safe for me.
So Amu, when I say that I am already “too pretty,” my obnoxious, loud overconfidence is not just for me. It’s for you too.
– রাশা
