Every time I go to Delhi, one of the only active things that are a part of my ‘I’m-home-now-let-me-slumber’ routine is accompanying my housekeeper/life-long nanny to the banya downstairs as she purchases a face cream. It’s always a tube of Fair & Lovely. Her set response of her skin being “kharaab (bad)” sees little respite or reason in my explanations. Even after all these years, it leaves me exasperated. At the age of nearly 60 (she doesn’t know her birthday, so we estimate) she continues to hold onto the belief that there is something deeply wrong with her dark complexion, and that it will miraculously be fixed by the ever-growing stream of so-called fairness products that bombard TV air space. It angers me that the woman who took care of me from the day I was born still believes that something I find so ‘trivial’ makes her not good enough.

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