In Context

When you go to a public place with your grandfather and the white lady official greets you there, her eyes take in your baggy salwar and fitted kurta, and she cant immediately register the profusion of colours and textures, the mindboggling combination of threading and crochet and mocaish paired with blockprint in cream and brown and blue and gold. So she suppresses the fascination by telling you simply that you're beautiful, an understatement in her mind. And she continues to stare at your kohl-rimmed eyes and the silver sparkles on your lids, mulling over the fascinating culture of makeup and the beauty it seeks to emphasize depending on culture to culture.

And not once does it occur to her that you went clubbing last night.