Brown skin is beautiful too

A FOUR-YEAR-OLD was told by children of the same age that she couldn’t be beautiful because she had dark skin and curly hair. This discrimination on skin colour is not new as I grew up hearing similar statements. But there was one thing different back then; I saw darker-skinned women on screen.

When I was younger, the Tamil film industry had talented and beautiful actresses like Banupriya, Radhika, Suhashini, Rohini, Madhavi, Shalini, Nanditha Das and Saritha who were dark- skinned. They were all leading women with dozens of movies under their belt, and I grew up thinking Silk Smitha was the sexiest woman on screen.