Last Friday, former BJP parliamentarian Tarun Vijay sparked a racism row with a TV discussion on recent attacks on African students in Greater Noida, in which he'd argued, “If we were racist, why would we have all the entire south...Tamil, Kerala, Karnataka and Andhra...why do we live with them? We have black people around us.“

The incident set model-actress Sonal Sehgal thinking. “I realised that he was not being deliberately racist, this prejudice against skin tone runs so deep in our society that it has become acceptable. Why else would someone say something like this on national TV? Why else would ads promoting how to become six shades lighter play without anyone reacting to them?“ she reasons, admitting that when she had moved to Mumbai 12 years ago, one of her first modelling assignments was for a fairness soap that earned her enough to pay the whole year's rent.

At the time she didn't think twice, but three years later, in 2008, after she had become the face of two primetime shows, her maid, Gangu, came to her with two different brands of fairness creams and asked which one she used. “I suddenly understood that I had failed Gangu and millions of gorgeous, dusky women across the country, including my own sister, by becoming a part of the mafia that undermines their self-esteem. Being an educated, city-bred girl with a scientist father and a school principal mother, I realise that these creams don't work, but women like Gangu believe they need them to conform to our standards of beauty,“ she notes, remembering her school bestie who was darker than her and urged to drink her milk by her grandmother so she wouldn't be a 'tawa blackened by the flame'.

In 2013, Sonal took a sabbatical and enrolled in a New York film school, where she was a part of the elitist crowd that found it hard to believe that this fair-skinned girl was an Indian. And she woke up to the fact that the racial divide across the world is not relevant back home as apart from those up North, most of the country is dusky and beautiful.

Back from New York with new skills and wiser to the prejudices, Sonal made a short film, Dancing In The Dark, in 2015. It wove the incident with her friend and Gangu into its story of a talented background dancer who is pushed to the last row because she's dark and uses soaps and creams to lighten her skin tone only for the desperate attempt to backfire. “It was in the song-and-dance space but I didn't have sponsors. I made this film with the help of some friends with Ritika Kumar, whose dance classes I used to attend, as the lead. It was to expose the dark side of an industry and a society where fair equals beautiful and successful,“ she says.

For two years the film lay in her hard drive after she was told that this was too big a battle to be fought alone. Tarun Vijay's remark made Tannishtha Chatterjee, who'd seen the film two years ago and recently stormed out of a comedy show on which she was being roasted for her skin colour, point out that it was time to show her film around. “If a fair-skinned girl brings up the discrimination, she won't be seen as playing the victim card and people may take notice. It's time to change mind-sets, shame models into turning down ads that endorse a skewered role model,“ says Sonal. “I feel responsible for letting this kind of racism perpetrate, for not speaking up earlier.“

You just got back from Cannes, where Mantostaan was screened at the Le Marché du Film. How important is this for such a film?
It is a great platform where you can sell your dubbing rights. You can market it to foreign distributors there, who can later dub the film and release it in their countries. Our work reaches many people and the producer can make his money. I am glad more people are following this as it opens up that many doors for actors and writers to break out of the conventional Bollywood mould and do something exciting and challenging.

Manto wanted to write for films, yet it took time for his stories to make it to the screen. Why do you think so? Also, tell us about playing one of Manto's characters?
Manto's daughters had actually mailed our director, thanking him for making the film. So, contrary to my initial belief, rights were not clearly an issue. His writings were probably controversial, in the sense that his character graphs were not linear. And maybe mainstream actors, who work so hard to establish an image, might fear that if they portray such a dark character, the audience might not accept them. I assuming it would be a question of box office numbers. And there may not be too many producers willing to put their money into something like that. For me, it was a dream come true to play a Manto character.

What is the most fun thing you have done in your life?
There is this elite club in Phuket where the waiters, all trained dancers, come and ask you for a dance to get the party going. I happened to tell one of them that I am an actress in Bollywood. Next thing I know, they dragged a table to the centre of the floor, two guys lifted me up and put me on the table. I then started dancing to Kaliyon Ka Chaman to a huge audience!