MUMBAI: Fashion designer Masaba Gupta, who is the love child of Neena Gupta and West Indies cricketer Vivian Richards, was raised as a single mother by the Bollywood actress.

Masaba gave an interview to one of the leading portals where she opened up on being bullied as a kid and how women empowerment doesn’t exist in the society.

They say that hurt me with the truth but never comfort me with a lie, and that’s what your mother has always done. She has always told you the truth and never comforted you or put a false bubble around you. So as a child when you were growing up, how did that shape your personality? “You know obviously, as a kid, there are some things that make you a bit uneasy and uncomfortable because you think about it, and you just want a very sugar-coated life. But I think with me that really shaped the woman I am today. I'm very sharp. I can tell who's not telling the truth or not being 100 percent authentic. I think more than anything, it gave me the ability to stand on my own two feet.”

You said this a lot that you faced a lot of bullying during your schooling days you saw a lot at a very young age. There were just so many questions and curiosity around you. Did you ever feel like picking up a foundation of lighter shade and trying to look like your peers? “I must say that when it comes to bullying, a lot of people think that it happens in college. Only the person who's been bullied really knows what they're going through. When you're being bullied and it’s something that scars you or sort of leaves an impression on you for life. I think that for me especially, I just wanted to change who I was. I wanted to be somebody else. I just didn’t like who I was I just decided that you know why I have this hair, lips, body why can't I just look like everyone else and just be a part, I didn't want to stand out I wanted to fit in, so I think that was something that happened because of the bullying. The thing is kids can be very mean and it's not their fault, but I think the parents were sort of equally to blame because they also look down upon darker people. I remember when I would step out for school around the eighth grade, I picked up my mom's foundation one day and I quietly went into her makeup kit to make myself look lighter. So, I did that, and I obviously didn't realize that it's not the colour of my skin and I went to school, and everyone has obviously figured it out. Even though today everything has changed, there are so many things that haven't.”

(Also read: Mother-Daughter Goals! Masaba Gupta calls her mother Neena Gupta her ‘Inspiration’, scroll down to know more) 

She added, “On the one side, you have a women empowerment movement going on saying give women more power, educate girls, don't marry them off young. On the other hand, you have, for example, you would have a woman who will say I want to run my own business and be an entrepreneur but will only marry a man who has money in his bank account or will only marry in a certain strata of society and vice versa. You have men saying that maybe they want to date a dark-skinned girl because she's kind of exotic and hot but marry somebody who’s from a proper family and she should work. Women are also not expected to be in the kitchen cooking anymore, so I'm saying there is a balance today but this idea that everything has changed a hundred percent is not true. I just find it so regressive because I think that parents should especially raise their girls to be self-sufficient and independent. Of course, I want companionship, of course I want to marry and of course I want to have children, but I want to be with somebody who's an equal.”

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(Also read: Must read! In today's scripts, roles for women are not dependent on a man, says Neena Gupta)