Most of us are guilty of calling our friends ‘Kalu’, ‘Mota’, ‘Bhais’ etc among other names without understanding that the embarrassment that comes with it could scar someone mentally. While we don’t realize the gravity of our casual remarks, the racial slurs travel with them through their growing years too.
And like many of us, Indian choreographer, actor Remo D’Souza has also been at the receiving end of such societal prejudice.
Talking of facing racism and being called names since childhood, he said to Times of India, “I have faced racism and prejudice due to my skin colour ever since my childhood. It is a subject that I have dealt with very closely and experienced whenever I travelled abroad. When I was growing up, people used to call me names. I used to just ignore it because I thought that maybe they are saying it because I look a certain way.”
However, he feels that he shouldn’t have let people bully him even as a kid. “Eventually, when I grew up, I understood that this was wrong, and the fact that I was letting them call me these names was even worse. Now, I stand up for it and won’t take it from anyone. I also think those comments on my skin color pushed me to become who I am today so that no one could ever call me those names again. But racism still exists; go to a small town or village and it is there,” he revealed.
The choreographer-turned-filmmaker is on the road to recovery after suffering a heart attack in December 2020. We wish him good health and a great future in 2021.