Three years ago, when I read No. 9 on the Shade Card, I came across the concept of a shade card for the first time. As a child, conversations about skin colour bounced off me. People spoke of how one person was lighter or darker than another; they talked of having tanned too much after a trip to Goa; I knew people who wore socks no matter how hot it was just so that their feet wouldn’t tan. None of these conversations pierced the bubble I lived in, much like Lina, one of the two protagonists of the story. Unlike Lina, however, there never came a time in my childhood when I had to come face to face with the fact that being fair was a real obsession, not something you could just roll your eyes at and forget all about.
Lina loves drama. When she learns that the school production of the year is Romeo and Juliet, she’s thrilled. Of course she’ll audition for the part of Juliet! Unlike Miss Snelling in Dara Palmer’s Major Drama, however, Miss Deepa who is in charge of the school play cares very much about what she thinks Shakespeare’s idea of “fair” would have been in his description of Juliet. And Lina sees her skin colour for the first time.
Shame, helplessness and frustration make Lina do things she has never done before. She needs to whiten her skin, and fast! Yet, she knows, deep within her, that no one will understand her need to change her skin tone, and so, she keeps all her attempts secret. With a friend like Meher, though, the secrets are bound to tumble out, and Lina needs to decide what is most important to her.
Unfair is a pageturner. I was not drawn into the story immediately, but I did like the characters and their quirks. The best thing about the story is how naturally it reads, moving swiftly from one event to the next without ever boring the reader.
| Title | Unfair |
| Author | Rasil Ahuja |
| Tags | Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction |
| Age-group | 10+ |
| Rating (out of 5) | 4 |
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