For years, my skin felt less like a home and more like a battleground. It was a canvas upon which everyone else seemed entitled to scribble their criticisms. I was the girl who was too hairy, too short, too skinny, everything about my skin and body was too much. Classmates would joke, ‘Arey iski to mooche aati hay, ye to ladka hay’ (Oh, she gets a moustache, she is a boy) or an aunty would suggest home remedies ‘to reduce the hair.’ I started to believe them, to the extent that I wanted to rip off my skin or change my appearance completely.
I remember one sweltering summer at a family wedding. All my female cousins were in beautiful, sleeveless lehengas, their arms and shoulders bare. While I wore a full-sleeved blouse, the fabric was so thick that I spent the whole night burning up inside it. The music was loud, but I did not dance much. I sat in the corner, feeling my skin itch under the layers, believing my normal body was dirty and wrong. My own skin felt like a costume I could not take off.
Then, the pressure got bigger. It was not just people talking anymore, it was everywhere online – images of perfect hourglass figures, filtered skin and a single idea of what a woman should look like. It felt like the whole world was shouting that my normal, hairy, imperfect body was wrong, like I was failing a test I never signed up for. The knot in my chest, the one I carried from those first childhood taunts, tightened, because how do you belong in a world that profits from convincing you that you don’t?
Everything changed when I walked into my girls’ college
It was when I got admission in a girls’ college and realised the feminist joy of being in my raw skin, free of any makeup, threaded eyebrows or waxed upper lip. It was not magic, but quiet acceptance. I walked into the classroom wearing a crop top with unshaven underarms. I waited for a comment, a snicker or a stare, but nope, nothing. It was as if nothing had happened. A friend of mine just pulled me aside and talked about the brooding professor we have this semester. My body wasn’t something to comment on here; it was just there, existing, and, to be honest, it felt incredible. That irrelevance was the fertile ground where a new seed could finally sprout: my feminist joy.
The joy was not loud, performative celebration but knowing that no woman here would hesitate even once before handing me out a sanitary pad even when they don’t know me, not even my name and what makes this solidarity over mensuration all the more powerful is knowing how expensive sanitary products are, it was in the freedom to dance wildly at an event, sweaty, loud and screaming lyrics, completely sure that no one was staring at your body, it was in having a conversation with a friend whose eyes stayed on mine, not wandering to check my appearance.
My body stopped being a project I was failing at, and it became my home. The hair on my skin was just hair. My shape was just my shape. The perfect pictures online no longer mattered. But the real feminist joy was not just about that one place. It was about taking the feeling of being comfortable in my body with me; it was about realising that my skin was never the problem. The problem was and is the world that teaches us to see our skin as a problem.
The real joy came from choosing experiences over appearances. It was choosing to feel the sun on my legs rather than worrying whether they were smooth enough. I chose to laugh until my stomach hurt instead of sucking it in, worrying what the others would think of me.
The old world is still there. The aunties are worrying about the size of my boobs and suggesting types of bras I should wear, the common friends casually passing mean comments, ‘Tu to mooch wala bhai hai apna’ (You are our brother with a moustache), but the difference is inside me now. I carry that college joy with me; it’s my little secret. It’s the peace of looking in the mirror and not seeing a problem to fix. It’s the happiness of living in my own skin, on my own terms.
They told me for years to change my skin, to fit a mold but I decided to live in it instead. I decided to find my feminist joy in my raw skin, not the perfect hairless, poreless, hourglass body, but the imperfect, natural, real me. My feminist joy is the peace I felt when I finally said no.
About the author(s)
Gunn Bhargava (she/her) is a Political Science undergraduate at the University of Delhi and a feminist writer focusing on gender justice, power, and human rights. Her work engages with feminist media, pop culture and political analysis, drawing from her experience with platforms such as Feminism in India, Writing Women and The Women Story. She is keen on contributing to transnational feminist conversations through progressive journalism.
