ONLY
SKIN DEEP
Girls always have to worry about her stains, be it stains in
character or period stains or stains on face. My mother and I used to
laugh about it during the Fair and Lovely advertisements.
I was twelve then, I was just starting
to realise that I am a girl and different from boys. I was being referred to as
a young lady, and a pretty one at that. I had fair skin, big eyes, long
lustrous hair and all that considered to be a typical Bengali beauty. Like
every other person, a sense of joy soared through me at being complimented as a
pretty girl. In my father’s family I was the only daughter among five others,
who inherited the ‘milk-rose’ colour of my grandmother. She never forgot to
mention it. Ma and mani (mother’s sister) made sure this thing never got to my
head. They let me know from the start, beauty is only skin deep. Thankfully the
sense of superiority never haunted me as the so called ‘pretty’ girl. It was
just a nice and sweet secret pleasure.
My 6th
standard finals were around the corner. One night when I was revising my day’s
lessons with my mother, she suddenly pointed towards my eye and enquired about
something on my eyelid. I touched and said nothing. She leaned forward and
looked closely. There was a white patch. Some skin colour was even whiter than
my usual fair complexion. She looked worried but she left it at that. Next day
she took me to Dr Parek, a homeopathic doctor. Even he looked worried. I had
never before seen a doctor look worried. He asked me different questions like
whether it hurt or did that place had any senses. I answered them dutifully. I
did not understand what was so grave about a white patch, especially since I
had blue patches all over me all the time, due to afternoon adventure trips
with friends or fights with dirty boys. He made some medicines and gave them to
me. I loved eating his medicines they were sweet and powdery and thus there
were no reasons for complaining. But little did the younger me knew what was
forthcoming while I was happily taking my medicine for a white patch, which was
nearly invisible, if not noticed closely.
After a month or
so the patch of skin became the same colour as before. My whole family heaved a
sigh of relief. So did I, since everyone was doing. It was a ‘cool’ thing to do
what elders did.
But the good old
days did not last for long. Again those white patches came, in different places
and in much bigger sizes. My mother got really worried and so my family. It
made me look different from rest of the people. It made me feel strange.
Everyone around me got concerned. I had Vitiligo.
It is not a grave
disease. It is just de-pigmentation of some portion of skin and it is an
auto-immune disease thus there is no permanent cure to it. It can be controlled
but not completely removed. It does not harm physically but makes people look
‘ugly’, allegedly.
Everyone fell into
the depths of despair. It took them about few years to come in terms with the
fact that I have Vitiligo. I will have white patches on my skin forever and
will not look like others. The series of visiting doctors and eating various
medicines started simultaneously. I have been to every kind of doctor. You name
it and I have tried it. My first proper dermatologist was a retired army
doctor. He prescribed around six medicine to eat and four lotions and cream to
apply on the skin. They were prescribed in strange timing and combination. It
was so complicated to remember, that my mother had to make a time table for the
medicines and lotions. She made a very colourful one. It was her way of making
me feel better. She would buy pretty boxes to keep my medicines and cute little
bowls to eat them from. She thought these might cheer me up. He even prescribed
UV rays. I had to sit for an hour baring my patches to UV rays, a very complicated
treatment. He was the beginning but there were no end. Each day someone will
hear about some good doctor and would come tell my mother or my grandmother and
they will rush me to the new doctor. Ayurvedic, Unani, Herbal, Ramdev… so and
so forth. I went to every one of them. I wanted to make them feel better. They
wanted to feel they were trying. Grandmother even consulted an astrologer and
wanted me to wear some stone or the other. I put my foot down there. I did not
want to go through anymore treatments. Nothing worked.
The irony of the
situation was that all the sympathetic statements made me feel worse. I
remember a distant aunt of mine who came for a visit and saw what disaster has
struck me and thus commented, ‘Such a sad incident. She used to be such a
pretty girl.’ I guess it was said to make me feel better about my long lost
beauty. Everywhere I went there were some sympathetic comments or the other and
millions of enquires. ‘How?’ ‘ When?’ ‘Why?’ ‘Is it ever going to be cured?’
‘What are the doctors saying?’ All these questions were buzzing all around me.
Everyone had something to say, those who knew about it and those who knew
nothing. I even got some empathetic commenter, who had Vitiligo and did not
know how to cope with it. They spent so much money on the treatment even if
they could not afford to, just to look ‘normal’. At the beginning I could not comprehend the
fuss about everything. But gradually it dawned on to me.
Strangely enough I
never felt much bad about it as everyone made it seem like. Before I did not
feel bad because I did not understand it and later it just did not matter. May
be I never had to luxury of self-pity, as my family was lamenting and being sad
about the misfortune.
I have learned quite early in life, that the key
to look pretty is just being happy. ‘Happiest girls are the prettiest girls’ is
what Audrey Hepburn had said. I have always had reasons to be happy. A bright
sunny morning to a prettily wrapped present, a new dress to a new book, smell
of the rain to good night kiss everything makes me happy. I did what every
normal teenager does, I went to school, had fun, made friends, followed
fashion, dated, partied, gossiped and sopped over cute happy endings in movies.
People still come and give me advice.
Previously it used to make me upset and angry with their ‘nosy parker’
attitude. Now I know they are just trying to be helpful. I can take their
questions and enquires more sportingly and understandingly than before. I can
explain better to kids who exclaim at my not so normal skin and old people who
are tabooed against it. I take it as they come. I have accepted me to be like
this and so has my family and friends. They love me for what I am.
