Fair & Lovely Poem by Maya Patel

My father never tells me anything.
He likes it when I don't get hurt.
But sometimes, I'd want people to tell me when I hurt them.
My mother's hurt because she knows she has to pay dowry.
She knows that if I keep growing into this skin,
She's going to have to sell her jewellery for me.
I don't just love her because she's fair-skinned,
Like everyone else
I love her because she's my mother.
And so I wash my face for her.
For the fifth time of the day,
I rid myself of all the pollution the world has caused me.


We've spent a few thousand rupees on the best fairness creams.
I still can't wipe away my dullness.
My mother says that everything in her life is dark, including me.
When I only try to be myself.
But if there is anything that I learnt from aunties telling my mother that she did something wrong to conceive a dark me in the womb, that she should've slapped some turmeric on me the second I was born,
Being myself is not enough.
Showing my face is not okay.
Is there any way to find something good about this?


My mother tells me that I'm better off dead,
And she brushes her fingers over my head as she does so.
The expense of societal approval, she says,
Is immeasurable.
I'm ready to pay my expense,
If it means making my mother happy.
Because me being who I am isn't about me anymore,
It's about everyone watching me gripping her hands,
As we walk down the street together.
And when I do, I wonder if she was better off,
With me not existing.

The only option.
To be white is to be the only option,
To be what I want to be in this country.
And though I try to choose the option as others tell me,
I know that I can't.
My complexion doesn't allow me to choose.
Why should I change, when

My father tells me that the best way to get rid of pain,
Is to accept it.
And see it in a brighter light.
He says that I haven't even experienced anything close to pain.
And I thought about that.
My skin is strong in its decision to be immersed in duskiness.
Why is that unfortunate?
Why can't I feel beautiful?
Why can't I be a girl who is unfair and lovely?

There is no need to close myself up,
When I did nothing wrong.
I can make my mother proud when I tell her
That I hold the top ranking at school,
That I am able to hold interesting conversations,
That I am able to empathize with those that are misfits.

I do not need to be fair to be lovely.