HOW DARE YOU CALL ME FAT?
MISS ICELAND DID A GREAT THING BY TELLING THE ORGANISERS TO TAKE A HIKE WHEN THEY TOLD HER TO EAT A LITTLE LESS. LET’S HEAR IT FOR SUCH WOMEN
Ten days ago, I saw a photograph of myself at the beach that a friend had snapped, and as I zoomed into it, I was mortified. It’s a nice picture — blue skies, camels for Dubai tourists and all that — but for the fact that I can see ugly, loose, flabby bingo wings (you know, jiggly non-triceps that women who are not Michelle Obama are prone to)? Now, not that anyone (but me) cares about the padding on my arms, but what’s a girl to do; they’ll call you a fatty if you let it go out of control, and they’ll call you a bimbo if you obsess and keep it under control. We need the Buddha to get up from under that tree and come show us some middle path hacks.
To my mind, a bit of carefully calibrated obsessing is healthy. Not healthy like the euphemism in North India for being fat, but positive healthy. Just for a bit, I was a fat kid. You should have seen my cheeks. I have pictures. My school principal, a nun at a boarding school, even told my mother when she came to pick me up for the holidays: she’s a sweet girl, but make her lose weight. Even now, there are things I mutter to myself
about Sister Rosina. Hey Sister, it’s called puppy fat! And some of us grow out of it only much later. And bingo wings notwithstanding, you should see me now!
You don’t forget the nasty things that people say when you’re fat. It hurts. So you remember. Towards the end of my school years, I swam twice a day for two months and the puppy fat dissolved. A friend of my mum’s saw me after a while and said something nice. You don’t forget the nice things either, and that feels good. When it comes to weight and insecurities and constantly wanting to be fit, you basically don’t forget any offhand remark. Ask anyone who is or has been a bit big about how one stray comment can make you starve for two days. Hello, lettuce dinners!
The fighting against lard comes down to diet and habits and not keeping crap like Haldirams namkeen in the house. Cupcakes, thankfully, don’t mean much to me. But when I’m in vanity vigilante mode, I ease up on the peanut butter, which I love, because, well, #binge. Same for Nutella (don’t love it as much), same for Amul butter, same for roasted almond ice cream from Govinda’s, aloo parathas, methi parathas, burrata, brie, besan ladoos — god help me! And as high an opinion as I may have of my willpower — over time, I’ve learnt the pain-free option is to have the true loves of your life out of sight. Throw them out! A woman’s got to do what it takes to protect herself from monstrous delicacies that go straight for the gluteus maximus, and (insert scientific name for bingo wings).
Anjali Chandiramani, founder of A-tone Fitness Lounge in Dubai, says, “Indians are purely into yo-yo concepts. Rarely do I meet an Indian who wants to get fit to live a better or healthier lifestyle. It’s always for someone’s wedding or for New Year parties, for which we’ve had a lot of sign-ups in November.”
This year, Miss Iceland Arna Ýr Jónsdóttir quit an international beauty pageant because a bright spark on the organising committee told her to lose weight. Her shoulders were a problem; too broad, apparently. Miss Iceland, as you can imagine, has a great body. I felt sad that the poor woman was being made to feel like there was a problem. And good for her for having none of it!
On the other end, there’s Eman Ahmed Abd El Aty, 36, who hasn’t left her house in Egypt for 20 years because she weighs 500 kilos. Now that’s a whole different zone. Eman had a stroke and she’s bedridden. If that’s not bad luck, I don’t know what is. She’s to be flown to Mumbai — and a high five to Sushma aunty for clearing Indian visa hurdles, despite being in hospital herself — so that a bariatric surgeon in Mumbai can operate on her. I feel hopeful for Eman. I hope she gets well soon, puts herself together emotionally and gets to be vain and strut and pout and upload on Instagram (if she wants) and not feel any shame.
Fat issues, like Mommy issues, or boy troubles, or anything really, are, of course, not a one-nation thing. Do all women want to be thin? I think so. I asked Russian national Evgenia Arushanova, a marketing pro, about her weight. She’s not fat. Says she was a skinny kid who put on weight in her teen years. “I got bigger and I got smaller — it was a cycle.” When I asked Evgenia how fat is too fat for her, she said (and this sounded familiar): “If I can’t fit in my trousers and if I can see the beginning of a double chin, it’s time to be more strict.”
One of my benchmarks for nutrition and fitness is my father. Recently, I was whining to him about not getting time to work out. And in the middle of a market in Gurgaon, when I was waiting to collect my clothes from the neighbourhood tailor, he showed me a set of 15-minute exercises. My father is six feet tall, ex-Army, disciplined in his food choices, and no matter how late he goes to bed, he’ll do his morning drill. Being thin his whole life, he even wrote an e-book called Zen & The Art Of Burning Belly And Butt Fat. The man gives me hope. Not just because I must have some of those genes. But since I seek validation from him, I was chuffed to hear that I’ve sailed past the Indian woman age (late 20s, early 30s) when they — ha! no, ‘we’ — put on weight on (our) hips and thighs. Woohoo! Such music to my ears. Except, he didn’t say anything about arms. I’ll find out on my own. And like him, maybe one day, put it in my memoirs. FB & The Art of Losing Arm Fat.
Indians are into yo-yo concepts. Rarely do I meet Indians who want to get fit to live a healthier lifestyle. It’s always for someone’s wedding or, like now, for New Year’s Eve parties. Anjali Chandiramani
If I can’t fit in my trousers, and if I can see the beginning of a double chin it’s time to be more strict. Evgenia Arushanova