"You're a little tan to be from North India."

"You would make a great dusky Indian actress."

"You don't look like your mom," I looked up from my seat, my mouth still full with the girl's night out Indian Chinese dinner, "maybe you're adopted." This was followed by a laugh from the same girl who said it. That one stayed with me forever. It was as if looking a little physically different from your skin meant you were not one of them.

When I was in my early teenage years, I was visibly very dusky. Dusky is a mid-shade skin tone between fair and dark, which means having a 'wheatish complexion.' I could have chosen to overlook this reality, but there was only one problem- I grew up Indian. Thus, my personal business became everyone's personal business.

Sometimes, at family gatherings, I remember people would pass illogical comments like, "You should eat more, your face will gain color." I knew that meant I'd get whiter as if eating more would magically whiten my skin. Because in South Asian households, there is no skin tone as 'nice' as the fair skin tone. After all, the color of a girl's skin determines many essential factors in a girl's life, including plentiful and suitable marriage proposals.

I would find myself wishing I was fair skinned like my mother and my older sister, and sometimes, I would pretend I was. Filtering pictures, putting on face powder for family parties, until eventually, I came to a realization.

It was not my skin tone that needed to change, it was the way I let society make myself feel about it.

As I grew older, I began embracing the naturalness of my skin and my body. They tell you not to be down because everyone is beautiful, but they never show you how to take it in. I began feeling comfortable because how I looked was what made me different, what made me, me. And there was no better form I could have been in. So to all the people who have something to say about your skin tone, your color, your appearance, here it is:

There is no beauty that is not beautiful.