One could run into 26-year-old Jaya PS anywhere in the southern port city of Cochin – be it in a supermarket, public transport or at an art exhibition.
Ms Jaya, who holds a masters degree in art, paints her body with collyrium, a type of dark eye shadow, whenever she steps out of her home studio.
“I decided to paint my body black while appearing in public after Rohith Vemula died,” she told the BBC.
“Caste is closely related to colour and whatever is black is not welcome in the Indian society. I experienced its severity when I started painting myself black,” she says.
Even in Kerala, which is India’s most literate state, she says colour matters a lot and not many like to marry a dark-skinned girl.
Her elder sister Jalaja PS, who is also an artist, helps her paint her body every day, a process that takes two hours to finish.
Ms Jaya has now vowed to be “black” for 125 days and on the last day of her protest – on 26 May – she plans to hold a “big event” in the city with a gathering of Dalit writers, artists and activists. At the event, she will give a classical dance performance and release a book on her experience of “living as a black girl” in a “society that worships white”.
The Times of India newspaper called Ms Jaya’s protest a “novel social experiment” in a country where “dark skin has always been considered ugly”.
