‘Ahh… she’s been living in a Sudha (white) country for all these years but still this child is Kaluer (darker) than us and you. How can that be?’ a shopkeeper in my hometown in Sri Lanka laughingly asked my parents.
When this happened to me at just six years old, I turned to my parents in disbelief. Quick to spare me from any discomfort, my mum and dad politely smiled and ushered me out of the shop.
This is one of my earliest recollections of experiencing negativity over the colour of my skin – but unfortunately not the last.
As a British Asian growing up in the western world and going to a predominantly white school with mostly white friends, I am used to being the person who was ‘different’.
But being the darkest member of my family has additional pressures. People on the outside wonder how I ended up so much darker and my parents were frequently asked by their friends, ‘Whose side of the family did she inherit her skin from?’
Quick to rush to my defence they would proudly answer, ‘Faye got her unique and flawless complexion from both sides of the family’.
Over the past few decades, the world of Bollywood has dominated celebrity culture in South Asia, with the likes of Shahrukh Khan and Priyanka Chopra becoming the popular ideals of beauty.
From a young age, I was quick to notice that the leading actors and actresses of these films all have a ‘fair’ complexion – one more aligned with westernised culture. In Sri Lanka, lighter skin is recognised as a social marker for the upper class and darker skin is associated with labour in the sun.
This is reinforced through TV adverts for lightening soaps and creams. Sri Lanka’s shops and supermarkets are filled with such products.
As strangers in my hometown in Sri Lanka jokingly branded me ‘chocolate’ and ‘Coca-Cola’, it made me think my dark complexion was the first thing people notice about me.
Things finally came to a head in 2018 when, aged 26, I was asked by a family friend to be a bridesmaid in Sri Lanka for the first time.
I was so excited but when the chief make-up artist pointed at me and said to her helpers, ‘I will sort this one out’, I couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Placing me in a chair, she started applying a thick foundation onto my face, my neck and even my arms, all while saying, ‘You know, even though you are dark, you are really beautiful’.
Initially I took this as a compliment because I was pleased I could still be considered beautiful despite having darker skin – showing just how distorted my idea of beauty had become.
After she had painted my mask on, I didn’t recognise the face I saw in the mirror. I was a different colour. What was worse was realising that none of the other bridesmaids’ faces were being painted like mine had been.
Humiliated, I couldn’t help but start to cry. I just wanted the day to be over so that I could go home and scrub my face off. But everyone at the wedding told me I looked ‘beautiful’.
Though one of the worst days of my life, it was also a blessing in disguise because that’s when I knew I liked my actual face – not the one I was given for a day.
I finally got to experience what it would be like to be in ‘another person’s skin’ and I absolutely hated it.
Given that most of my friends from the UK want to get a tan on holiday, I often find it confusing to reconcile two cultures that project conflicting ideals of beauty.
At 28, I am proud of my Sri Lankan heritage and confident enough to no longer be apologetic for my colour.
I feel guilty that my parents have been dragged into the ‘blame game’ debate and I guess I will never understand how it came to be that I ended up darker than both of my parents, brother and cousins. I am OK with it, though, because they are too.
It’s part of who I am and I shouldn’t feel obliged to change myself in order to ‘fit in’.
Yes, sometimes there’s a worry at the back of my mind that I won’t meet someone because of my skin colour or that I am always going to be defined by how dark I am – but if that’s the case, they aren’t people I should be associating myself with.
Unwilling to give in to the stereotypes so woven into the fabric of their culture, my parents’ attitudes have given me the courage to do the same.
If I could go back and speak to the six-year-old Faye, who was embarrassed by the shopkeeper’s query over her colour, I would tell her that it’s better to be the ‘black sheep’ than the sheep who follows the crowd.
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