For those of you who are film enthusiasts, I saw the Green Book at the cinema on Saturday night, I was a bit unsure what to expect though I did hear good reviews about it.

It was a mix of a sad, heartfelt but also an uplifting film about an African-American man in the US who was a famous pianist who went on a tour of the Deep South of America, and the battles he had to encounter purely because of his race and skin colour.

Despite the hardships, challenges and hostility at that time for the black people (early 1960s), he had achieved so much for himself, but he didn’t feel like he fit in, even with his own people – he was so scared to shine his light over his own people as he thought they would judge him in a negative way purely based on the fact that he had done really well for himself. He kept himself and his true shine hidden and didn’t share it for a long time.

There was such a heartwarming moment in the film, where he finally played for a big crowd of black people in a bar he went to after being treated badly, and they absolutely loved him, his energy, his music, his gift. And only then did he realise, yeah he can do this again – and I could really feel his emotion in that part of the film, how happy he felt, more than just the regular smiles at the end of each of his performances. He could just be himself and nothing else mattered. It was quite a special moment.

So don’t be afraid to shine. The world needs your light. Don’t dim your light to make people feel comfortable

And go and see this film!