It all began in the summer of 1994. I was all of 7. A healthy 7. When I say healthy, I mean I was rounder than your average 7 year old. My passion for food had no bounds. My partner in crime and connoisseur of fine food, was my grandfather. Our evenings were spent munching on medu vadas, onion bajjis and puffs of all varieties comparing each snack in grave detail. We knew the best bakery for chocolate cake, the best thattu kada (roadside shop) for onion bajjis and the best restaurants to gorge on burgers, biryani and kotthu porotha.
I was happy. Life was simple. Until, that doomed summer evening in 1994. I was sitting on my grandparent's solid teak rectangular table with my skinny, leggy cousin. We were both munching on our evening snack, when my father walked in. He looked at both of us relishing on our egg puffs (me a bit more than my cousin) and he said, "Enough Gayatri. Give the rest to Sowmia." With the puff still dislodged half way through my mouth, I gave him a dubious stare. Was he mad? I wondered. Which sane person disrupts a good meal, however small it may be.
"Come on. Stop eating", daddy ordered. After much hesitation, I nudged the remainder of my puff towards my cousin and walked out of the dining room in a huff. I went upto my grandfather (who was as always, busy taking his all-day nap on his cushiony recliner, with the television switched on in full-blast) and poked him on the belly. He woke up with a grunt. "I'm hungry, appu. Can we go out?" I announced. He gave me a puzzled look, scratched his head and yelled out to my grandmother, "Indire, INDIREEY, ee kochunnu endengillum kazhizyan kodukku" ("Give this child, something to eat, Indira", for those who can't read Malayalam)
Over the years, aunts and uncles of various sizes and shapes (yes, you read right, none of them were shapely, but had tongues wide enough, to cover the circumference of the earth), repeatedly announced how round I'd become over the years.
While my ego, took a severe battering, I continued gobbling down anything and everything I could lay my hands on. Finally, in 2006 (after receiving a mild form of verbal whipping) from my brother, I shed 12 kilos. But in my head, I was still that fat kid who everyone called "round", "chubby", "gundu bedalam", "fatty fatty boom boom" and much worse.
The scars remain even today. I'm 30, somebody's wife, a homemaker, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a passionate PR professional, a loyal friend and much more. But nope, none of the above make the cut when it comes to having the "perfect body". I'm still "fat", in the eyes of my trainers and the gazillion aunties and uncles I meet, each time I make a trip back home. Thank you for making every single woman in the world feel like a beached whale. Are you in shape? No. But you still want to make that pretty girl in the blue dress feel less confident about herself, by announcing to her that she is fat? Okay then.
(Image Source : https://www.pinterest.com/pin/497225615088695475/)
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