Sithara Krishnakumar is one of the recognisable faces in music events and TV reality programmes. Over the years, she has won fans with her charming smile and endearing voice in glitzy shows where a heavy face of makeup is a must. But the 33-year-old playback singer is not afraid of showing off what is beneath all that cosmetic products that keep her glowing in such shows.

Sithara revealed her unvarnished face, removing her makeup and wig in front of the camera and posting that video to facebook on Saturday. She posted the video as a reaction to the ‘flawed’ general perception about them, saying others in the same job want to speak out the same too. The 10-minute facebook video garnered over 32k reactions and over 4.7k comments and became a hot talking point among the netizens.

“People are happy and make good comments when they see me in a certain dress. But they make negative opinions about me when I turn into my most comfortable self,” Sithara said in the video before removing her makeup one by one for her social media friends to see. As an introductory note, Sithara has also written an apology that she was sorry for uploading a long video which viewers may find boring.

She began by removing her eye shadow, took out the bindi and earrings and wiped off her facepaint before removing her wig, finally showing how she presents herself in her house. “See, this is how exactly I look. This is the real me. I don’t say makeup is bad. It is a necessary part of my job but I don’t want to put it on all the time. I hear from my social media friends that I look elegant and traditional when I post some pics with makeup. For them, I am ugly and untidy without it in others” 

“What they don’t understand is that I dress the way I find most comfortable. It is sad that my social media friends find it repelling.” Sithara reveals that her photos look wonderful for her friends when she is in full makeup. “People don’t like to see how we are in real life. They always want us to be wearing my full cosmetics.”

“I was heartbroken when I received a totally negative comment about a picture I took with my daughter during shopping. I was wearing a blue eyelash and people said I looked like a transgender. Since when transgender became a bad word?  Sometimes they say I look like a north Indian vendor on the roadside.  Since when did all of these people become disreputable?” Sithara asks.

Sithara received nice words from friends for pictures in which she appeared with a lot of gold ornaments. She was not, however, happy with those pictures because she did not like wearing a lot of gold. “People are not ready to treat us as one of them. They hate us when we show our real colour of skin, features of face or hair.”

“Is not it good to remain positive when the whole world is struggling due to Covid-19? This is a time when we are not even sure how long we will live here. So let’s be positive,” she says adding she will still put on makeup as it is part of her job but at other times she will be the real Sithara.