I AM KRISHNIMA (translated version of “আমি কৃষ্ণিমা”)

On Identity, Dignity, and the Tyranny of Colourism

I am KRISHNIMA.

I am that primordial darkness which gathers in the profound stillness of the night, within whose embrace the stars inscribe the testimony of their existence. I am an inescapable presence, deeply rooted in the profound experience of the black veil that envelops the Kaaba. Beneath my existence lies no veneer of artificiality, no calculated intention of concealment; I am precisely what I am, in the entirety of my inescapable being. And yet, in this world, my very identity constitutes the first accusation levelled against me, my skin colour the most primordial piece of evidence presented in opposition to my existence. From the very moment of my birth, it is as though I have stood in the dock of an invisible tribunal, where I remain ignorant of the crime I am alleged to have committed, yet am compelled to bear the weight of its sentence, relentlessly and without respite.

I plunge into an ocean of criticism, carrying within me the inescapable inheritance of KRISHNIMA, embodied in the natural darkness of my hair. Stones of contempt, poisoned needles of ridicule, and razor-sharp blades of mockery continually assail the ramparts of my self-respect. Sometimes through a half-lidded gaze, sometimes through the derision lingering at the corners of someone’s lips, and sometimes through an insult uttered with effortless casualness, my existence is gradually confined to the narrow dimensions of a single colour. It is as though the entirety of my being and intellect can be dismissed, leaving the pigment of my skin as the ultimate and indisputable document of my identity!

How extraordinary is the aesthetic doctrine of this civilisation! A society incapable of measuring the profundity of the human soul has elevated the superficiality of human skin into the ultimate standard of beauty. A gaze incapable of apprehending the radiance of character has constructed an artificial hierarchy of superiority and inferiority through variations in complexion. My body becomes the perpetual subject of their scrutiny, my appearance the laboratory of their aesthetic judgement, and my life an inexhaustible source of the defects they have chosen to attribute to me. My silence is interpreted as surrender, my protest as arrogance; my humility as weakness, my self-confidence as conceit. In other words, every expression of my existence is interpreted in accordance with the prejudices they have already established. They do not recognise me as a human being; instead, they place me before the tribunal of their manufactured ideals of beauty and determine whether I deserve acceptance.

But I am not merely a colour.

Beyond the KRISHNIMA of my skin resides a mind that ceaselessly reads the world, a heart that silently practises compassion, and a conscience that determines its moral position when confronted with injustice. The measure of these qualities cannot be determined by any balance devised within the confines of your conventional aesthetics. Within my innermost being lie layers upon layers of unspoken sighs, countless unexpressed aspirations silenced by the merciless blows of time, and innumerable dreams that faded beneath the burden of social contempt before they could even blossom. You possess no account of any of these things. You can read the visible colour of my skin, but you lack the patience to decipher the manuscript inscribed within the depths of my existence.

I was born KRISHNIMA; beneath the intensity of the sun, I remain KRISHNIMA; even amid the indistinct shadows of twilight, I remain KRISHNIMA. Neither the inevitable erosion of time, the cyclical succession of seasons, nor the innumerable adversities of life can erase the identity with which I was born. When death finally draws the curtain upon the last chapter of my earthly existence, my colour shall still never become a confession of moral guilt. From birth until death, my complexion will remain unchanged. Yet your faculty of judgement is so dependent upon superficial appearances that the colour I inherited without choice carries greater significance for you than the wisdom I have acquired; the appearance bestowed upon me by birth matters more than the character I have cultivated; and the visible pigmentation of my skin commands greater attention than my humanity.

You, empowered by the self-assurance of fairness, adorned with cosmetics in a multitude of colours, and rendered oblivious to yourself by the allure of external radiance, embellish your reflection with an assortment of adornments and indulge in the self-satisfaction of imagined superiority. Through layers of cosmetics, veils of prestige, and ostentatious displays of artificial splendour, you compose an illusory narrative of your own supremacy. Then you turn towards my KRISHNIMA and imagine a distance between us—a distance founded not in nature, but in the prejudices deeply rooted within your own mentality.

But have you ever subjected yourself to the scrutiny of introspection?

What relationship exists between the fairness in which you take pride and the purity of your innermost being? Does the radiance of your skin guarantee the purity of your conscience? Does the aesthetic refinement of your external complexion constitute irrefutable evidence of the nobility of your character? Can the multicoloured spectacle of cosmetics conceal the narrowness of your heart? If not, upon what foundation does your arrogance rest—upon the solid ground of genuine superiority, or upon the delusion of a self-deceiving mind that has mistaken an involuntary physical characteristic, inherited without effort, for evidence of its own supremacy?

You discover the reflection of darkness in my complexion, yet remain incapable of perceiving the black hole of prejudice accumulated in the depths of your own consciousness. The colour of my skin wounds your aesthetic sensibilities, yet you experience no moral transgression when you inflict wounds upon another person’s self-respect. My outward appearance is, in your eyes, a defect in need of correction, whereas the narrowness of your own perspective remains beyond the boundaries of your self-examination. What a merciless irony! The very person who seeks to establish superiority on the basis of another’s complexion remains utterly indifferent to the bankruptcy of their own humanity!

Do you know that darkness possesses an aesthetic of its own?

Without the KRISHNIMA of the nocturnal sky, would the brilliance of the stars emerge with such clarity? If the darkness of night were banished and the fairness of dawn enthroned in solitary supremacy, would not the radiance of light itself eventually become a monotonous prison of unbroken brilliance? Even the blemish upon the face of the moon seems to bear witness to a cosmic truth: without the slightest touch of KRISHNIMA, even the seemingly immaculate portrait of whiteness remains profoundly incomplete.

Therefore, the desire to erase me in order to glorify yourself is not an affirmation of beauty; it is an act of arrogant defiance against the very plurality that makes beauty possible. Where nature embraces the multiplicity of colours without hesitation, why does humanity insist upon setting one colour against another? Why has an inborn physical characteristic been transformed into an unwritten decree determining the social acceptability of a human being?

Nature does not send anyone into this world bearing a certificate of superiority. Human beings are born with physical characteristics they never chose for themselves. Yet who shall receive honour and who shall become an object of contempt, who shall be acknowledged as beautiful and who shall be burdened with the weight of inferiority—these distinctions are, for the most part, determined by socially constructed perceptions and entrenched structures of power.

The claim that one complexion is superior to another is therefore not a decree of nature; it is an artificial hierarchy constructed by humanity itself, one that, throughout successive generations, has sought to legitimise its authority beneath the respectable guise of beauty.

And so, today, I refuse to disown my KRISHNIMA.

I shall not betray my own identity in exchange for your approval. I acknowledge no obligation to reconstruct myself in accordance with the dictates of your aesthetic sensibilities. My existence is not rendered incomplete by the absence of your endorsement, nor is my self-respect contingent upon your praise. The purpose of my existence is neither to be pronounced beautiful by your standards nor to fulfil the expectations you have imposed upon me.

The significance of my life resides in my actions, my thoughts, my moral convictions, and the breadth of my humanity—not in the definitions of beauty you have arbitrarily established.

Even in rejecting the approval of a gaze that measures me solely by the colour of my skin, I exercise an inherent right to dignity.

For beauty is not the exclusive possession of a single complexion; dignity is not the inherited privilege of a particular appearance; and humanity is not an ornament that can be acquired through external adornment. The true identity of a human being is not inscribed upon the surface of the skin, but revealed in the moral depths of their existence.

I am KRISHNIMA.

Before you call me darkness, recognise the darkness within your own gaze. Before you condemn my complexion as a blemish, examine the stains upon your own conscience. For the darkness you claim to have discovered in my skin is far less profound than the darkness that resides within the depths of your own being.