The shape of me: Tackling body shaming like a boss!

'THE TAILOR STITCHED ME A GENEROUS ROLL WITH ARMS'

My parents dislike nicknames. My siblings and I therefore don't have any. Yet, I acquired one when I was in college. Motu. It was meant to be adorable — given my chubby cheeks and swelled up PCOS-riddled (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) body. Only, it was agonising.

I didn't get angry over how my own friends were reducing me to my physicality. I was 20 at the time, and had survived seven years of incessant jibes from my extended family regarding my weight. I wasn't always a chubby girl. I have a degree in kathak, which I received by practising for two hours every day, all through the week ever since I was a four year old. This had kept me in shape, and perhaps under check the side-effects of hypothyroid. I received the kathak degree when I was 14, but was told to wait for four years for the Master's because 18 was the minimum age. My parents thought I'd be better off spending my "formative years" on deciding which "career" to pursue. That was the end of any long-term affair I could've had with kathak. I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time and nothing to do.

I heard hypothyroid bellow like Scar, the villain in The Lion King. This time, it had brought along Banzai, the hyena, aka PCOS. I am no Simba. My 'Mufasa' (Simba's father) and 'Sarabi' (Simba's mother) are alive and well, but they too didn't know how to help me get through any of this. Our struggle was real, but the world (by which I mean my small hometown) didn't care for it.

This is when I met my first arch enemy. Masterji. The ladies tailor did not waste resources when he stitched me a generous roll with arms. That roll then chipped away at the last bits of my confidence as I walked out of high school and entered a new kind of hell — junior college.

Given that there are no uniforms to be worn in college, I had nightmares about being an outcast. "Why is she walking towards us?", "Look at those tacky clothes and that almost-beard, better not sit with us!" That first jibe in the first week of college had come from my "best friend" since school days. "Hey fatso, park your Scooty on the other side." Jaadi (fat), hathi (elephant) and hippo were additional nicknames thrown at me. "Aye moti, hat na (Hey fatty, move aside)," was a catchphrase each time I walked down the staircase. And let me add that 107 kg of crying mush in the chemistry lab looks damn ugly. The teachers didn't take questions from a fattie who also had facial hair, wore glasses and was clearly in need of help. And while the boys in town admired the geek in me, none asked me out.

It wasn't easy on the home-front either. The chachis, mamis, and mausi ki nanad ki ladki ki best friend would derive pleasure in lecturing me on how to get skinny even as their kids were competing to be hot air balloons. Cousins would "joke" about how their bikes might do voluntary wheelies if I sat behind them. I would've loved to respond but talking back wasn't an option then. It isn't one now.

By the time I completed a master's in business administration, my father, falling prey to societal pressure, had enrolled me in a gym and a yoga class. My teeth clenched in pain as lasers were shot at my face. Because now even ass-hats in search of a soul mate were put off by my fat deposits. I can go on and on. But what matters is that over the years, I found my special brand of humour. 

A wise person once said that if you laugh at yourself, no other jabs will hurt you. Medication for my physiological ills, struggle with depression and suicide attempts all embellished my sense of humour as I grew wiser. The friend who called me motu couldn't handle this calmer, hormonal, devil-may-care attitude and faded to 'Facebook only' friend status. I met better people who saw me beyond my looks and the seven-year-friendship tests were passed with them. God bless my mother for she saved me from drowning and taught me to love myself. That's still work in progress.

What ought to also be work in progress is the world coming to the realisation that fat people are not gentle giants. We are the people who are acutely aware of the space we occupy as compared to most others who waste no time in sizing us up. You poking to check how deep your finger goes in my flesh is hurtful. Your assumption that I am the hog waiting to finish your leftovers has the ability to break me. All you have to do is mind your own business until I come asking for help.

'OTHERS SEE ME AS FRAGILE'

I must have been around seven or eight years old, and once again, as soon as I passed on the tray of appetisers without taking one, I heard the familiar words: "Are you dieting?"

Which adult in their right mind asks an eight-year-old child if she's dieting? Perhaps it's meant to be a joke, but it fails to impress once you've heard it a thousand times. Just because I'm thin, you cannot expect me to eat something every time the starters do the rounds. When you're skinny, you can't refuse food. You're tummy may be bursting, but the one time you politely say, "No thank you," it's assumed that you're dieting. Food preferences or allergies, likes and dislikes, or simply not being hungry… these things just don't apply to thin people as they do to the rest of humankind. "Why have you served yourself so little? You're so skinny, you need to eat! Go, take some more." It may not have occurred to you, but there's a possibility that I would first prefer tasting the food before going back for a second helping of the dishes that I really like, instead of piling up my plate and then wasting most of it.

Of course, there are other gems: "You don't like to eat?" (Oh no, not that I don't like to eat, but then you have to poop it out, so what's the point?); "You're so thin, is mummy not feeding you?" (No, what to tell you aunty, she gives me all the crumbs, it's so tragic!); "You're so skinny, I'm scared to touch you. What if you break?" (Yes, because I'm made of glass). And then there's my favourite: "Oh, it's really windy. Don't go outside or you'll fly away. If you really must go, fill your bag with some stones." (Maybe I should just hold on to you. You'd need a hurricane or a crane to lift you off the ground.)

As a child, I kept my mouth shut, because it would be rude to talk back. Not any longer. I have now mastered the perfect eye roll and the bottled-up retorts fly left, right and centre. So when an older aunty made it her mission to find out why I was "eating so little" every time we had a meal together, I told her, "I don't want to become fat like other people around me." That shut her up.

It's mostly older women who'll say insensitive things. Them, and the closest friends (surprisingly, more guys than girls), who assume they have the right to poke fun at my expense all the time, repeating the same jokes for years. What hurts the most is the fact that it is the 'fat' friends who are the ones to crack the most 'thin' jokes, and that they don't pause to think how they would feel if someone made fun of their body. Maybe it's just envy, but while it may seem like only fat shaming amounts to body shaming, thin shaming is just as bad. I've been called skeletoid, sukdi (skinny), sukha bombil (dried Bombay Duck)… been told that my clothes "hang on me," asked if I shop in the kids' section, have been lifted up as 'weights' and have been pestered about the "secret to staying so thin". Genes, my dear Watson, genes! And a little something called metabolism!

It's annoying that others think that I'm too thin — even though I can wear clothes that most others cannot; that I can squeeze into the fourth seat on the Mumbai local train; and that am probably more comfortable in an economy seat on a flight than they will ever be. What's infuriating is that others see me as something fragile and delicate, someone who needs to be bubble-wrapped and taken care of. That I will be blown away if someone went phoo! And that people probably think I don't know what is good for myself or that I need help with what to eat or how much to eat. They assume that thin means weak — too weak to carry my school bag or to hold my DSLR camera, which apparently "weighs more than" I do. People automatically assume I am dieting, implying somehow that I'm unhappy with my body — which was not the case until they made me conscious about how skinny I am.

As a child, I would always wonder what I could do to put on weight. I've been made this way and, as with everyone else, I could not choose the type of body I wanted. No matter what I tried — tonics, swimming (to boost appetite, eat more and put on weight), milk and bananas, eggphilip (which always made me want to barf), butter, cheese — nothing worked!

I've always understood that body shaming is wrong. It's rude and lowers self esteem. After 20-odd years of hearing the same jokes and the same questions, I've begun to stop caring what people say. I ignore or let them have it, depending on how far they've pushed me, and I eat what I want to. But then there is that one special bunch of people, who after they're done complaining about how thin I am, will say, "Oh, wait till you're a little older, all that you're eating now will start showing." Okay then, make up your mind!