Dark, not lovely: What San Rachel's death reminded me about discrimination

Indian Express

15-07-2025

As a child growing up in Kolkata, I was often told to 'take care' of my skin, especially as I spent hours training in martial arts under the harsh afternoon sun. What began as seemingly gentle suggestions soon gave way to more pointed comments. By my teenage years, hushed conversations around my marriage prospects had begun, with relatives debating whether my 'darkness' would be a liability. My mother's rules were unspoken but clear — avoid the sun, wear full sleeves even in summer, and always keep a tube of Fair & Lovely close at hand. In so-called progressive Bengal, being 'wheatish' was tolerable. Being dark was not.
The recent suicide of San Rachel, a 26-year-old model from Puducherry and an advocate against India's deeply entrenched colourism, hit close to home. Rachel was confronting an entire cultural system that told women like her, and like me, that we weren't enough. That we had to earn visibility by erasing ourselves.
Rachel didn't just walk runways, she dismantled them. Crowned Miss Puducherry in 2021 and later Miss World Black Beauty, she challenged every norm that told her she couldn't be beautiful. She went on to create a mentorship platform to uplift other marginalised models. But behind the crowns and accolades was a young woman quietly fighting the crushing weight of depression, online hate, and personal hardship.
Her story is painfully familiar. In India, skin colour still determines a woman's worth – her desirability, her marriage prospects, her dignity. Matrimonial ads continue to seek 'fair brides'. Family members still recommend turmeric packs, lemon juice, and ubtans to 'brighten' the skin. Compliments are backhanded, always delivered with an asterisk – she's dark, but pretty.
At my cousin's wedding, a guest whispered how 'fortunate' it was that the groom 'overlooked' her dusky complexion because 'everything else is perfect'. She smiled through it. Later that night, she cried alone in the bathroom.
Fair & Lovely, the fairness cream that defined generations, was a fixture in most Indian households, including mine. It was rebranded to 'Glow & Lovely' in 2020, but the shift came decades too late. The messaging remained intact: Success and acceptance were for the fair-skinned; the rest of us had work to do.
Bollywood, too, plays its part. Leading female actors, many of them naturally dusky, are routinely lightened on magazine covers and on screen. Camera lighting, filters, and makeup are deployed to make them 'camera-friendly' – a coded phrase for paler. Priyanka Chopra, who once endorsed fairness creams, later admitted she was ashamed of having contributed to the culture that had made her insecure. Ironically, in Hollywood, her skin tone was suddenly seen as 'exotic'.
This whitening isn't just reserved for women. The industry operates in reverse, too. Fair-skinned actors are often bronzed with darker makeup when portraying characters from marginalised castes or economically weaker backgrounds. In India's visual vocabulary, fairness signifies wealth, privilege, desirability. Darkness is associated with poverty and, by extension, inferiority.
The bias is far more than skin-deep. It creeps into job interviews, classrooms, marriage meetings. A friend, an accomplished lawyer, told me she was advised to apply foundation before meeting a prospective groom so she wouldn't look 'too dull'. Her accolades meant less than her melanin.
San Rachel spoke publicly about being bullied for her skin as a child, and rejected by modelling agencies early in her career. Yet, she persevered, calling out the deep-rooted hypocrisy of a nation that worships dark-skinned gods but shames its dark-skinned girls.
Her death is a sobering reminder of just how relentless this pressure can be. Of how the applause on stage can drown out the silence within. In India, for many women, beauty is not a joy. It is a burden. A battlefield. A lifelong negotiation for validation.
We cannot bring Rachel back. But we can honour her. We can carry forward her work, her voice, her vision. It begins by unlearning what we've internalised. By refusing to laugh at that 'dark joke' at a family gathering. By calling out the aunty who insists her daughter shouldn't play in the sun. By recognising and rejecting colourism even when it comes dressed as 'concern'.
And maybe, finally, by teaching our daughters, and our sons, that beauty was never meant to be a single shade. Thank you very much.
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