The Black Rose

Ever wondered what effect persistent bullying has on a six-year-old? Ask a forty-five-year-old. Ask me.

Ever since the Black Lives Matter movement following the brutal murder of George Floyd in 2020, I have found myself sharing numerous stories about my past with my two children and husband. Having experienced colour prejudice or insensitive remarks about my brown skin tone throughout my life, my past has come back to haunt me . . . uninvited and unwanted. A 'dark' past. Or, as Indians would call it, a 'kala' past.

Although I have mostly had a wonderful, blessed life, growing up between India and Japan, and now living in the UK, there are elements of my past that are painful, to say the least. Painful because I happened to be dark-skinned, born to fair parents. And this was seen by some Indians as an open invitation for taunting and derogatory comments.

For hundreds of years, Indians have harboured the notion that being fair-skinned is a ticket to superiority. That's right - white supremacy doesn't just exist among white people. Sadly, this is still the case even in modern, 'liberated' India.

For years I have tried to forget my painful past, like childbirth. But the remarks, even now, are relentless, leaving me festering like a sore. Writing about my past is an attempt to face this colour prejudice head-on. They say writers should write what they know. I am not a writer. My memoir is about who I was and who I have become. As it is a collage of extracts from my memory, digging deep from the tender age of six, the rendition is not as clear-cut as black and white. There are several shades of brown in between, no pun intended! Unravelling my story, I discovered more than I was prepared for: many buried secrets, some darker than colourism.