I wanted to be pretty.

I wanted to be pretty so bad that I sneaked into my mother's room one evening and pulled out a hundred rupee note from her purse to buy fairness cream. I sprinted to the cosmetic store with the stolen banknote because my TV tried to convince me that 'the fairer a woman, the prettier' and I let it.

When Holi came- marked on my calendar as my favorite holiday- I drew the curtains and locked myself in my room. The colorful powders- the green, the yellow, the vermilion, gave me bad pimples and if my face got covered in acne, what would the boy I liked say? So I stayed in, feeling desolate as I chose beauty over joy. Somebody else's perception of me over my own happiness.

I remember the terrible hives winter gave me back then. The harsh, cold blows made my hands swollen and sensitive. I covered my hands in gloves and gave up eating lunch at school because my winter allergies - I thought - added to my homeliness. I wouldn't expose my bare hands because the world told me pretty was likable, real wasn't.

All my life I haven't had the courage to wear bright red lipstick. It belonged to pretty women and despite my paltry efforts, I believed in my heart I could never be one. I was terrified that if I painted my lips with it, someone would see the plainness beneath and recognize my desperate attempt to be something I was neither born as, nor to be. I knew it didn't belong to me. It never would. But this morning I picked it up the vanity dresser and put it on without a second thought.

I think I look so pretty.