He left her,

not because she wasn’t understanding enough, not because he wasn’t comfortable with her, not because the things weren’t smooth, not because of long distance, not because of fights,

but because he was WHITE and she was BROWN.

She asked him i always had the same color why did you choose me at first?

To which he replied i first found you fine unless my friends called us “the oreo couple” and a “black and white love story”, you embarrass me he said.

She went home that day, she didn’t cry, she looked into the mirror, trying to find why couldn’t she see the embarrassment in her color? why the brown color never seemed a token of shame to her parents? or did she never see the shame?

She went back into the time recalling all those incidences when her color was defamed, when all those guests at a marriage said, “your younger daughter is prettier”, when her relatives told her to cover her face with a scarf to protect herself from tanning, why couldn’t she realize that they were actually acquainting her with the Brown color she had. All those times when her aunt gifted her a ‘Fair And Lovely’cream at her birthday and she as a fool thought it was a present, NO, it was the alarm of what was going to happen after a few years, she was trying to save her from this agony but her mother never let her use the fairness cream and then she started crying, she started screaming, she wanted to scream out louder but the sobs were not allowing her to do so, her voice was trailing off, she felt her life was a bane wrapped in that Brown color.

Soon enough her face was obnoxious to her, she discerned her eyes were weird, one was smaller than the other with no attractive color just those boring almond brown, her eyebrows bushy and joined with no shape at all, her smile, too big for her face, her nose was blunt and huge which almost covered one third of her profile, her lips were not at all pink how boys liked it, they were pinkish brown and looked filthy, her hair all frizzy and oily and so was her skin, she was not at all what people called beautiful, she now knew this, she now accepted this.

Now all she wanted were her answers from her mother who never let her use make up, who never let her go to a salon for getting her brows into shape, who gave her false hopes that one day a prince charming will come and marry her “beautiful daughter” in spite of knowing that she was brown and ugly and there would be no such prince charming ever she wanted to confront her and blame her for the gloom she was in, she waited for her mother to answer the sin.

Her mother finally came, she bashed her with all her questions, “Why did you lie to me? Why did you give me false hopes? Why did you keep me away from the dark reality of my life?” her mother all perplexed and tensed seeing her condition, calmed her down and asked her,”  What happen to my beautiful daughter, why are you crying, what did I lie to you? The daughter replied, “This, this is what you’ve lied to me in the 18 years of my life, that I am beautiful you never told me the truth that I am brown, you never let me use those fairness creams and make up, which could improve me and could make me pretty and pleasant, why did you do this to me maa why!! today because of you I lost the only man I could ever love and the only man who could’ve possibly loved me back, only because of my brown color, why maa why?”

The mother got up and brought a mirror in front of her daughter she told her to look into the mirror and asked her, “Tell me what can you see?” the daughter said, “An ugly brown face.” the mother said, “Exactly! its only the face that you see my child, nothing else, your face only gives you an identity, it only makes you recognizable in those million faces, your face is just like your unique identification number which is only yours, it is gifted to you by God, how can your face decide that you’re beautiful or not?”

The bewildered daughter tried to register her mother’s words, she processed them in her mind and asked her mother, “But maa all those people out there who think I am not beautiful enough because I am not fair and I don’t have sharp features and clear skin, all of them in a unanimous opinion can’t be wrong maa!”

Her mother laughed, she caressed her daughter’s face and said, “Before deciding who’s beautiful and who’s not, you should first know what beauty is my child, beauty is not sharp features and fair skin, to understand beauty is to understand the insight of a person, you know why I call you beautiful? because you care, you think, you have your own opinion and you’re vocal about it, you’ve the strength to rebel, you’ve the wisdom to decide right and wrong, you’ve the elegance to carry your simplicity, you’ve the smile that speaks volumes, you’re beautiful! tell me my child, can brown, black, white or any color decide if you’re beautiful or not? all those people who define beauty by mere conscience of your face are nothing but untouched with the insights of there own selves and the real definition of human art and beauty.”

The daughter was now feeling no pain, she was experiencing the new doors of the concept of beauty that her mother opened to her, but then something hit her mind and she asked her mother, “Maa if color does not matter, why did you never let me use those fairness creams, what was the problem if i would’ve been fair instead of brown, at least he wouldn’t have left me.”

Her mother now with an utter sincerity replied,” The reason why I never let you use those cosmetics and creams and never let you visit the salon was that I never wanted you to confine yourself in these pity things and skip out on the real joys of life, the real happiness is not in looking fair and have your brows in shape and your skin clear and your hair long and layered, the real joy of life lies in discovering your own personality, mending your thoughts, when you’re able to elicit your strengths and eradicate your weaknesses, when you know what kind of a person you are and you’re confident about it, when you are able to distinguish people not on the basis of their faces but the confidence they hold in their words and opinions, I never wanted you to cage your power of thinking and categorizing people and yourself on the basis of how they look!

My dearest lovely daughter, you’re very lucky that you’ve the eyes that see, the nose that smells, the mouth that speaks, because you’re able to grasp all those aesthetics of life around you. Do not enslave your mind to only concentrate on the color or features or heights or bodies, set your mind free let it explore, let it go into the profoundness of the biggest art of all times, humanity.”

The daughter now smiled with the confidence she never felt before, she had sympathy for her beau who could not understand the profundity of being beautiful, she hoped he and his friends would one day will have the intensity to understand and intake the real beauty, she hugged her mother and told her “maa you’re beautiful!” to which her mother replied, “and you’re the most lovely daughter a mother could ever ask for.”

A YEAR LATER…………

One day, when she was walking down the stage talking against the racism and colorism in country, amidst the claps and hoots.

Someone came up to her and said “Hey you’re Beautiful”.