A man with facial disfigurement claimed he was refused service at a cafe due to his face, according to the BBC. 35-year-old Amit Ghose has been dealing with unwanted staring and bullying since he was a child.
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Man Refused Service At Cafe Due TO Face Disfigurement
When visiting an independent coffee shop in London, a female employee allegedly refused to serve him. He could feel stares from everyone in the room, and he described it as if they’d “seen a ghost.”
“The person serving looked at me and said: ‘Oh, we’re not serving anymore,'” he said to the outlet. Ghose has been subjected to strange comments before, but never a refusal of service.
“She turned around and walked off,” Ghose continued. “But clearly, clearly they were still serving.”
Ghose was born with a condition called Neurofibromatosis type 1. This genetic disorder causes benign tumors to grow on nerve tissue, according to the Mayo Clinic. These growths can appear anywhere, and for Ghose, they appeared on his face.
Ghose eventually had surgery to remove his left eye at 11 years old. Now he has a prosthetic eye, along with the tumors on the left side of his face. He has since learned to accept how he looks, and he visits schools to help children “embrace their personalities and celebrate who they are.”
Not only that, but he has published a children’s book called Born Different. Ghose was inspired to write this book after a recent negative experience he had.
“I had a couple of individuals come over to me in a park and ask me what happened to my face, and I thought they were just being curious,” said Ghose. The individuals then started laughing at him. They said, “Oh my God, if I had a face like you, I wouldn’t even come out of my house.”
These comments “really upset” Ghose. But instead of letting the comments get under his skin, he decided to write a book that would’ve helped him as a kid. “I thought to myself, I need to do something about this,” he explained. “I need to get this book out. Now is the right time.”
How Ghose Learned To Accept Himself
Ghose’s journey of accepting how he looks was a bumpy one. At one point during Halloween as a child, another student told him he didn’t need a Halloween mask. “You’ve got one for life,” Ghose recalled the child saying.
For a while after this incident, Ghose tried to hide his facial disfigurement. “I just was not comfortable showing it to the world at all,” he said. Now, as an adult, he realizes just how low his mental health was.
Although playing cricket at school helped him make friends, his wife Piyali helped him become even more confident. She taught Ghose the “art of acceptance,” and she persuaded him into putting himself on social media.
“I created a video and I said to the world: ‘I want to take you all on a journey to help and support and inspire you using my lived experiences,'” said Ghose.
Since creating his TikTok account in early 2023, Ghose has amassed nearly 200,000 followers. “Me helping people on social media by sharing my story has helped me become more accepting of myself,” he said.
“I just want to give this narrative to people that if we truly celebrate who we are, accept who we are, fall in love with who we are, then we can be more confident.”