A few of my friends after reading my recent posts about beauty and being dark skinned messaged me asking why do I keep saying about being dark skinned when I am so accomplished person. Their question is genuine because they feel I am talking about this for publicity or probably sympathy.
Some even tried to send me consoling messages saying that you are beautiful and that they like me. 
Well, friends, being dark skinned or for that matter any kind of difference in the beauty norms of society actually is a pain for people who go through such biased approaches from society . For eg: I know several friends of mine who are fat or short and though they say that "I am satisfied the way I am", they do go through lot of conflicts in their mind when they see others better off than them. Its natural for them to feel lower self esteem. To add on, we do hear lot of body shamming comments and also see that only the perfect ones gets visibility or appreciated in common places.
In many of my training sessions, I find girls who are not confident of their physical appearance tend to be not confident of their capabilities as well.
I remember one instance where a girl with lot of pimples on face told me , "I hate to see the mirror !" She felt timid and took much time to overcome the shame. In another instance a dark skinned and short girl in a class almost was brought to tears when I made her the leader of a group activity. She said, "Its the first time she is becoming the leader". I nowadays consciously identify such timid, not so confident girls and give more attention while in class.
Most teachers likes to put attention on the smart ones and end up giving opportunity to them. But trainers focus on the non-smart ones
Well, coming back to my story of why I write about being dark skinned or facing biases now is simple - Now when I say, people take a look or even hear. Years back, there was no one to listen to my emotions when I faced such biases. And I ended up having lower esteem until a few years back. For me, it took almost half of my lifetime to actually love myself. Without which I ended up as a victim to my circumstances and as a girl who was afraid to dream. But now, the moment I shed my inhibitions and started loving myself, I am able to impact my life and my career positively.
Instances of biases have been several while I was a child. For eg : whenever there was a program on stage, my teachers placed me on behind row and placed the fair girls in front row despite the fact that I did sing well. So as a child I thought that probably my singing is bad so I am not singing henceforth and stopped such hobbies.
I restarted singing only in my 20s when I identified that I can sing! To the extent that I even went for university level singing competition !
One another reason why I write about these is that there are many girls and women in my friend list who do face similar situations and are unable to cope up.
So, here I am - Someone who is no more bothered about how I look but is bothered about how I impact the world. 
Pic: A pic close to my heart. Largest crowd of girls whom Prayaana addressed for Disha campaign in February 
at Musaliar College of Engineering
at Musaliar College of Engineering
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