Fashion designer and actress Masaba Gupta recently spoke about facing racism in her daily life and shared some shocking experiences. Masaba, who is currently expecting her first child with husband Satyadeep Mishra, revealed during a conversation with journalist Faye D’Souza how she was given inappropriate advice, such as eating certain foods like rasgulla and drinking milk would ensure that her baby would be born with fair skin. She also spoke about her father, former cricketer Vivian Richards, and her deep anger towards discrimination based on skin colour.
Reflecting on her personal experience of dealing with comments on her skin colour, Masaba said, “I still face comments on my skin colour. There are very few comments now. It’s all still not resolved and I don’t think it will ever be resolved for at least the next decade.”
Masaba Gupta recounted an incident where her masseuse advised her to eat a rasgulla every day to ensure that her baby has a fair complexion. “My masseuse told me, ‘You should eat a rasgulla every day because your baby should be fairer than you.’ Another masseuse also suggested me to drink a glass of milk every day, for the same reason,” she shared. “Saanvali nahi honi chahiye (the baby should not be dark). It was said with so much innocence. What can I do? Punch my masseuse? No. You can only raise a child who hopefully has the ability to recover from it,” she said.
Masaba acknowledged the innocence behind such comments, but stressed that such perceptions persist even among educated and affluent individuals. “Sometimes people think that calling someone ‘kaali’ is a way to degrade them, I find that very absurd,” she said.
