My rekindled pain

I am sorry

 That I did not stand up against racism and that I may have subjected others to it unknowingly. I live with regret of not having said anything until now. And not standing up against the prejudice. In my very early days in Norway in 2014, I was part of intensive and demanding project – leading it as an Indian woman. Having lived and worked in handful of different countries and having traveled a little, I had become accustomed to prejudice any traveler or an immigrant faces in a foreign country – assumptions are made about almost everything of person.

 The first time it happened was when this person commented on my skin color - and that I was so protective that I looked pale. It was said with prejudicial jest. I ignored it because there was a grain of truth. I grew up in harsh tropical sun with my inherited values to prefer shade than sunlight. However I cannot deny my experiences growing up in India - we prefer ‘fairer’ and ‘lighter' skin tones more than darker ones. We have face cream advertisement that gurantees lighter skin tones for both men and women in weeks and months. Our movies have higher percentage of lead actors who would be considered ‘fair’. When a girl child is born – a keen assessment is made as to how fair she is or would grow up to be. Fairness becomes a passport to better life for many children – especially girls with better marriage prospects.

 I do not know what was it – the intensity of the project, the demanding schedule, the competitive culture, high stake politics or just simple bigotry – the same person walked up to me and said when I was bringing my food from the canteen – ‘ you know what I have been eating so much Indian these days that my shit smells of Indian’. I was a proper, strong, calm project manager for my team. I brushed it aside as a bad joke. I moved on. But I have carried the humiliation of that comment and thought every day since.

 I know that there have been several humiliations before that event and some after it – some of them have been forgotten and some will be in due course. What I will never forget is that I have to stand up against prejudice and racism. I have to stand up for myself but also for each one of us especially those who are visibly different because we are unique in our own way and world has enough capacity and kindness to embrace our uniqueness.