Parched has been greeted with rave reviews and Tannishtha Chatterjee has been enjoying its success. However, the actress was in for a rude shock when she appeared on television show Comedy Nights Bachao, along with Radhika Apte and director Leena Yadav, to promote her film. In fact, Tannishtha walked out of the show when she was roasted for her dark skin tone. The 35-year-old actress took to her Facebook page to write about this nasty experience.
Tannishtha writes she was looking forward to be roasted on the show but it turned into a bullying episode. "And to my utmost horror, I soon realized that the only quality they found worth roasting about in me was my skin tone. It began with 'aap ko jamun bahut pasand hoga zaroor... kitna jamun khaya aapne bachpan se?' And went on in that direction... The only thing they could roast about a dark-skinned actress was of course her dark skin. They could identify me only with that," she pens. The actress went on to add that she could not believe that a "nationally televised comedy show in 2016 in Mumbai" was putting out "regressive" and "blatantly racist content".
The Parched actress rued that, "In a country where we still sell fair n lovely/handsome and show adverts, where people don't get jobs because of their complexion, where every matrimonial advert demands a fair bride or groom and the color bias is so strong, in a society which has a deep-seated problem with dark skin, which also has deep roots in our caste system , in a country where dark skin is marginalized, making fun of it is not roast."
Tannishtha wrote about how our perceptions of skin colour, caste and class are so inter-linked in our country. "Upper caste =Fair skin =touchable. Lower caste=dark skin=untouchable," added the Brick Lane actress.
She writes that when she walked out of the show, the organisers told her that she had been informed it followed a roast format. A roast is different from bullying, says Tannishtha emphatically. Her Facebook post has gone viral and people on social media have gone on to support the actress.
