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 early-life struggles and experiences with discrimination, recalling how he was bullied as a child because of his skin colour.

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

“I was 12 years old. I used to be a very short, dark, stammering kid. I used to be bad at my studies as well,” Goyal said, adding, “My friend’s parents used to tell them, ‘don’t be friends with him’.”

Goyal opens up about stammering

“No one listened to me whenever I wanted to say something. Mid-sentence, people would start talking about something else, look away, and stop listening,” he said. “This was the biggest hurt,” Goyal emphasised.

“It makes me nervous, like this (podcast) also. It is not easy and comfortable for me to do this. That’s why I do less of this. But now I care less. I am like I’ll be stuck, but somehow the right word will come out of my mouth,” he said, emphasising that stammering was not a challenge for him anymore and that he had “made his peace with it," added Goyal.

Goyal said being short and dark-skinned did not affect him as much as his stammer. “People wouldn’t listen. Mid-sentence, they would start talking about something else or simply look away,” he recalled. He added that it was only after achieving significant success that he felt people began to listen to him despite the pauses in his speech. While his family remained supportive, Goyal said he was often bullied by peers over both his appearance and his stammer.