There is a famous saying that ‘beauty lies within’, but does this hold true in today’s society, where we greet each other with plastic smiles? The answer is a big no, since what matters is physical beauty. Beauty, as they say, is only skin deep.
A few months ago, I weighed 86 kgs. As a 20-year-old girl lugging around those kilos, life wasn’t easy. My identity and individuality were lost behind the word “moti”. My friends and cousins stopped referring to me by my name and resorted to calling me moti , fatso, etc. It didn’t stop there. When I went shopping, shopkeepers would tell me, “Madam, thode patle ho jao ” (Please reduce your weight). The remarks always hurt, but it never dented my confidence.
The jibes made their way to social gatherings as well. My weight was always a topic for a good laugh for friends and family. Anybody dropping in at home gave me unwanted advice on losing the kilos. While out on a dinner, if I wanted to have a second ice-cream, my dad always scolded me, but for my slim sister, it was just the opposite. Every time I expressed hunger, thirst or exhaustion, inability to study for long hours, or even a bad mood...it was attributed to the fact that I was overweight.
My relatives, predictably, advised my parents, “Why don’t you ask her to reduce her weight? It will be difficult to get her married otherwise.” My parents left no stone unturned in trying to convince me to lose weight. But, all in vain, since I was happy in my own world and not a wee bit ashamed of my extra kilos.
One day, though, a friend asked me to join the gym with her. I decided to go along, not at all sure that I would last the month. During my initial days, I had no friends in the gym, nobody talked to me, but I got to know the reason much later. Now, when I weigh a respectable 66 kgs, I have so-called friends in the gym and boys who never talked to me earlier vie for my attention and offer to do me favours. “Can I drop you home?”, “I’ll get this for you,” is what I hear these days.
Now my friends call me Ravneet and the moniker moti has been replaced with ‘gorgeous’, ‘sexy’, etc. I feel I’ve regained my lost identity and individuality. I had no idea that losing that extra weight would make such a difference in the attitudes and behaviour of people towards me. I have lost 22 kgs and want to reduce more...not just for my satisfaction, but also to win this game that I’m playing with the world, this time on my own terms.
(Soul Curry is a column where we invite our readers to share their soul-stirring experiences)
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