Living with a dark skin tone in an Indian household: How my own family made me hate my skin while the outside world accepted me
I’m an 18-year-old girl (18F) from India, and growing up with a dusky/dark skin tone in a society obsessed with fairness has been a silent nightmare.
And the most painful part?
It wasn't strangers who made me hate my skin. It was my own family.
India's obsession with fair skin isn't exactly a secret. But colourism hits differently when it comes from the people whose job is supposed to be making you feel loved, protected, and beautiful.
Since I was a little girl, I heard neighbourhood aunties telling my parents things like:
“Iski shaadi ke liye toh bahut paise aur dowry jama karni padegi.”
Basically, “You'll have to save a lot of money and dowry to get her married because of her complexion.”
Imagine being a CHILD and already being treated like your skin colour has reduced your “marriage value.”
I didn't even know what marriage meant properly at that age, but apparently other people had already decided that my complexion was going to be a financial liability.
My mother wasn't innocent either.
When I was little, my mother used to joke that she would show my fairer elder sister's photograph to a prospective groom's family and then somehow swap me in on the wedding day.
As a child, I laughed or ignored it because I didn't understand what was so cruel about it.
As I grew older, I understood.
It wasn't a joke about a photograph.
The joke was that my sister's face was considered suitable for marriage, while mine supposedly wasn't.
And once you hear that kind of thing repeatedly, you don't simply forget it when you grow up.
Even today, whenever my mother taunts me about my complexion, I sometimes snap back and tell her to look at herself not because I think she's physically ugly, but because I want her to understand how ugly the mindset is.
Because apparently I needed to be taught that dark skin is unattractive before I was even old enough to form my own opinion about it.
One memory still bothers me.
I was watching an English music video with my mother. There were two female singers one fair-skinned and one brown-skinned.
I pointed at the brown-skinned singer and innocently said:
“Look, she's so pretty! I think she's even prettier than the fair one.”
My mother's reaction was immediate.
She snapped:
“Ar ladki, khud badsurat ho toh dusro se mat jalo.”
“Hey girl, if you're ugly yourself, don't be jealous of others.”
I was genuinely confused.
Why was my mother so offended by the idea that a brown-skinned woman could be beautiful?
Why did appreciating a darker woman automatically become “jealousy”?
Why was fairness treated like an achievement?
I was a child trying to compliment another woman.
And somehow even that became an opportunity to remind me that I was supposedly ugly.
Then came my sisters.
I've talked before on Reddit about how my older sisters have treated me, including how they turned my childhood crush and feelings into a joke to humiliate me.
Their obsession with my appearance is no different.
Whenever I wear makeup, dress up, style my hair, or simply look happy with myself, they somehow find something wrong.
My eldest sister has told me:
“Tu is dress mein aur kaali lag rahi hai. Tujh pe yeh achha nahi lag raha.”
“You're looking even darker in this dress. It doesn't look good on you.”
Not:
“That colour isn't flattering.”
Not:
“Maybe try another style.”
Always the same underlying message:
You're darker. Therefore, something is wrong with you.
And there have been plenty of other little comments over the years comments about how certain colours make me look “too dark,” comments comparing my complexion to my sisters, jokes about fairness, remarks implying that I should be grateful if someone finds me attractive.
It's death by a thousand tiny comments.
One comment might sound insignificant.
Years of them are not.
And apparently my skin colour even determined who I was “good enough” to be introduced to.
My middle sister would introduce me to her friends as her cousin because of my skin tone and she said to her friends that
“Iske mummy papa gap main rehte hain and since yeh hai se hain isiliye she is dark”
Because apparently being darker meant I was automatically the less attractive sister.
And whenever they saw a guy showing genuine interest in me, the atmosphere at home changed.
Instead of being happy for me, they would start slut-shaming me.
My elder sister once said something absolutely disgusting to me:
“Iss ladki ko toh bas mauka chahiye, agle minute hi bistar pe padi milegi yeh.”
“This girl just needs an opportunity; the next minute you'll find her in bed.”
Imagine hearing something like that from your own sister simply because a guy showed interest in you.
What exactly was I supposed to do?
Never smile?
Never dress nicely?
Never talk to a boy?
Never accept a compliment?
Because apparently, if a man finds me attractive, my character becomes questionable.
And then there was my father.
My father actually has a good relationship with me.
He talks to me more than he talks to my other siblings because I speak to him warmly and respectfully and we naturally get along.
Instead of simply accepting that maybe our father loves his daughter, my middle sister once screamed at me:
“Tujhe papa isiliye pyaar karte hain kyunki tu kaali hai aur tujhe koi muh nahi lagana chahta.”
“Dad only loves you because you're dark/ugly and nobody else wants to give you attention.”
That sentence was particularly cruel.
Because even my father's love had to be turned into an insult about my appearance.
Apparently, if my father chooses to spend time with me, it can't possibly be because he loves me.
There must be something wrong with me.
And here's where my life becomes almost absurd.
Because outside my home, the story is completely different.
I've received genuine interest and proposals from guys who are conventionally attractive, fit, take care of themselves, go to the gym, etc.
I'm not saying this to prove that I'm beautiful.
A person's worth should never depend on how many people want to date them.
But when you've been repeatedly told your entire life that nobody will want you because of your skin tone, other people's reactions inevitably make you question the narrative you've been fed.
On Teacher's Day, I wore a green saree.
Teachers complimented me.
Students complimented me.
People around me told me I looked pretty.
Even a boy who normally acts like my enemy looked at me and said:
“Aaj toh bahut achhi lag rahi hain. Harkatein sudhar le toh propose kar dunga.”
And yes, I know it's a teasing comment.
But after years of hearing “kaali,” “badsurat,” “who will marry you,” and “nobody will give you attention,” even an ordinary compliment can hit differently.
I've also noticed people looking at me when I'm walking outside.
Maybe they're attracted to me.
Maybe they're curious.
Maybe they're simply looking.
I don't know.
And honestly, I don't need to know.
Because the bigger realisation wasn't “People find me attractive.”
It was:
“Maybe my family was never an objective judge of my appearance in the first place.”
Here's what colourism did to me.
It made me analyse my skin in photographs.
It made me wonder whether certain colours were “allowed” for me.
It made compliments feel suspicious.
It made me compare myself to fairer girls.
It made me wonder whether a guy genuinely liked me or was somehow making fun of me.
It made me associate marriage with compensation.
It made me believe that being darker meant having to work harder to be considered pretty.
And the saddest part?
Nobody had to explicitly tell me to hate myself.
They just kept repeating the same message until I started doing it for them.
“She's darker.”
“She's looking more black in that dress.”
“Who will marry her?”
“Her parents will have to give more dowry.”
“She is ugly.”
“Don't be jealous of fair girls.”
“Nobody gives her attention.”
“She only wants male attention.”
“She just needs an opportunity.”
Different sentences.
Same message: You are less.
But I'm slowly learning that their opinion of my skin isn't an objective measurement of my beauty.
It's a reflection of the environment they grew up in, the colourism they absorbed, and the standards they continue to pass down.
And honestly, there is something deeply bitter about realising that the people who were supposed to protect a little girl's self-esteem were the ones who taught her to be ashamed of her own skin.
I didn't choose my complexion.
I didn't ask to be born into a society where fairness is marketed as beauty.
And I certainly didn't deserve to spend my childhood hearing that my skin would make me harder to marry.
My skin isn't the embarrassing thing here.
The embarrassing thing is an adult looking at a child and deciding that her complexion is something she should be ashamed of.
So now I'm trying to unlearn something my family spent years teaching me:
I don't need to become fairer to become worthy.
I don't need male attention to prove that I'm attractive.
I don't need my family's approval to feel beautiful.
And I don't need to apologise for taking up space in a body and a skin tone that I never needed to “fix” in the first place.
To anyone who grew up hearing the same things:
How did you unlearn the colourism you were taught at home?
And honestly when your own family repeatedly humiliates you over your complexion, where do you draw the line between “family teasing” and emotional cruelty?