Actors Anujoy Chattopadhyay and Ankita Das team up in Deboprasad Haldar’s new short on colour bias

Imagine a very common situation where an individual is presented to a suitor and their family and have to face comments on their skin tone. Another common instance is in colloquial rural language women are often spoken ill of, if they don’t display a certain skin colour. Interestingly, with time, this barrier has gone beyond gender and now anyone with high melanin in their skin is often ridiculed. Although it is termed as colour or racial prejudice and not spoken about upfront, small instances still find major reflections of the situation. Keeping this as the crux of their new short film, director Deboprasad Haldar teams up with Anujoy Chattopadhyay and Ankita Das in Rang Nahi Soch Badlo, which aims to take its small step towards making people aware of the situation and contributing making a positive impact in any way possible.

What makes Deboprasad Haldar’s new short film starring Anujoy Chattopadhyay and Ankita Das relevant in today’s times? 

Ahead of the Festival of Colours, Holi, comes the announcement of Deboprasad Haldar’s upcoming short film which focuses on the protagonist who quietly battles prejudices against his skin tone. While one speaks certain ill words or taunts a subdued man and forgets all about it, these words make a deeper impact by silently wounding the person, making them question their morale, existence and wondering about their fault in something which is so out of their hands.

Deboprasad Haldar mentions, “As a society, we often believe racism is loud that it exists only in extreme acts or explicit hatred. But in India, it frequently operates in whispers. It lives in casual remarks, in matrimonial preferences, in the way success and beauty are visually defined.” He continues, “This film was born out of a desire to examine that quiet conditioning how subtle color bias slowly seeps into a person’s consciousness and begins to shape their self-worth. My protagonist’s crisis is not external conflict alone; it is the internal erosion of confidence caused by years of normalized prejudice.”

In Haldar’s story, colour bias doesn’t scream. It silently creeps into everyday jargons and acts which make one pause and reflect if they too had unknowingly been subjected to the same. Haldar puts forward, “Through this story, I wanted to hold up a mirror not to accuse, but to initiate reflection. Because sometimes the most damaging discrimination is the one we no longer recognize as discrimination.”

Rang Nahi Soch Badlo is scheduled to release shortly this year.

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