Deepinder Goyal says he got bullied over skin colour, stammering as a kid: ‘My friend’s parents told them not to be friends with me’

Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal recently reflected on his struggles and experiences with discrimination at an early age and recalled how he was bullied in his childhood due to his skin color.

Speaking on Raj Shamani’s podcast Figuring Out, Goyal said that some of his friends’ parents discouraged their children from interacting with him, an experience that left a deep and lasting impact on his formative years.

“I was 12 years old. I was a very short, dark-skinned child who stuttered. I was also bad at my studies,” said Goyal, and continued: “My friend’s family used to tell them ‘don’t be friends with him’.”

Goyal spoke about stuttering

“Every time I wanted to say something, no one would listen. In the middle of the sentence, people would start talking about something else, look away and stop listening,” he said. “This was the biggest pain,” Goyal emphasized.

“It makes me nervous, too, just like this (podcast). It’s not easy or comfortable for me to do this. That’s why I do this job less. But I care less now. I feel like I’m going to get stuck, but somehow the right word will come out of my mouth,” said Goyal, emphasizing that stuttering is no longer a difficulty for him and that he has “made peace with it.”

Goyal said that his short stature and dark skin did not affect him as much as his stuttering. “People weren’t listening. They would start talking about something else mid-sentence or just look away,” he recalled. He added that it was only after he achieved significant success that he felt people began to listen to him, despite the pauses in his speech. While his family remains supportive, Goyal said he was often bullied by his peers for both his appearance and his stutter.