A remark about her moustache sparks an irreversible process of imposed beauty ideals in nine-year-old Hindu Zeenat. At home, she never learned to talk about emotions or pain.
When the self-assured Hindustani Zeenat is teased for the first time with her moustache, all of a sudden she realises the looks different than the white children around her. This launches a process of self-rejection with disastrous consequences. Although Zeenat’s mother reacts furiously to instances of racism outside the home, inside nobody talks about the pain. With a mother who never learned to talk about her emotions, a best friend who can’t relate to it and a society that propagates the western beauty ideal, Zeenat is all alone with her insecurity. Consequently, her anger turns inward.
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