Of Sizes and Shapes

120 pounds, 65 inches, size 6… In this new era of washboard abs and size zero - incense stick figures, I sound like a heavy-weight champion :O Maybe I should compete for the world’s fattest woman. That’s how I feel even with only 4 sizes smaller and 17 bigger sizes categorized in the size chart.

All throughout my years of adolescence I kept worrying about the baby fat I had. Looking back at pics of that time, I classify myself as a baby-elephant, at least going by my current stats.

Another 1-2 kgs shed, and my insides will be sticking to each other, there will be no space for the food through pass through. I will disappear into nothing-ness. I am beginning to remind myself of those cartoons, where a vehicle tramples you and you go flat, waiting to be inflated with air to get back into shape.

I am soon going to get myself a personal - no not trainer, a personal tailor to stop making my dresses look like gunny bags. I am not going to be able to shop for branded clothes anymore. They sell only size 8 and above in India for adults :-/ And I don’t fit into clothes meant for the kiddos and teeny-weenies. I feel like I am grotesquely deformed.

I kind of miss the fat I had. At least it was easier to sit. My bones didn’t hurt me back then. Long back I used to look in envy at women with curves at the right places. I still envy them. Wrong or right, I had curves back then. Now I just fit into the category of “column” amongst the 12 body types that exist? Straight parallel lines, no curves.

Did I say ‘Shapes’ in the title? Sorry. Erase that. Straight lines aren’t considered as shapes.

Where has the era of shapely women gone? Where have all my lipids dissolved? Why has the day dawned where I am cribbing about my stats and my shape (as usual) and still wondering if it is worth losing another few pounds…

P.S: I haven’t given up eating on anything yummy like chocolates, ice-creams or doughnuts!!

P.P.S: There was a time when a small bell would ring in my head if I indulged too much. I can’t hear the bell anymore 

P.P.P.S: Hoping to return all round and cherubic after Diwali.

The last P.S : Initially this blog was supposed to be a blog telling people to ditch the size zero idea. It’s come to this because I don’t find myself eligible for it anymore.

The Greedy Algorithm

Willy was leaving for the US. It was her last day in the city, and I had gone to help her with her packing. Her grandmother is a renowned astrologer, and though I don’t believe in palmistry, I like to get my palm read by her. It’s fun. No two people who have read my palm have ever predicted the same future for me. In fact, even Willy's grandmother’s prediction has had variations with the years that have gone by. Anyway..

That day she told me that I was destined for a love-marriage. She went further and wished me good luck for finding the man of my dreams and also said that she could trust my choice. It gave me a warm feeling to know that a lady who is close to 80 had enough faith to trust the choice of a 20 something girl. People at that kind of age generally go, err, a little off the track and they don’t trust you to anything.

Willy : Paatti, you trust Shivani with her choice, but if the matter of a love-marriage came to me, you would have so many issues about it.

Granny: No, my dear. We wouldn’t mind…

Willy : (cutting Granny off, mid-sentence) Oh, ya? Then why this long list of the things-i-shouldn’t-do?

Granny: (finishing off her sentence) we wouldn’t mind as long as the guy is a Thanjavur Vadamaaal Iyengar. That’s the only condition we have.

THE ONLY CONDITION as explained to me turned out to be this:

Thanjavur is the place where their family comes from.
Iyengar is the caste
And Vadamaal is the sub-caste.

My question here is what makes parents closed to the idea of their kids falling in love? Why is it OK as far as it isn’t your child?

Observation says that the parent’s idea of a perfect bride/groom for their progeny is a person who is from the same caste, culture. A guy whose family is probably related to you in some way (read - a family your family can keep a tab on, a family whose private matters are public to you).

They say, “It will be very difficult for you to fit into their culture. It’s different from ours.” Were we all brought up following a rulebook of what our culture is or what is permissible in it? Were we brought up with such rigidity that we cannot adapt to a few additions to the rites and rituals that we learnt?

Does it really matter if you don’t know what happened to the Paternal Aunt's Son-in-Law's Sister's Grandfather's younger Brother's Wife's Paternal Uncle's Sister-in-Law's Grandson of the guy you are to get married to?

The guy in question has to be well settled. He should own a house and a car before he is married. Why? Am I marrying the guy or his possessions? Am I not earning enough to support myself, and even him if the need arises? Did our parents have everything before they were married? Did they not build up their own homes? Then why this notion of a person well-settled? Or is our generation not capable enough?

Oh! I almost forgot. The horoscopes. Why is it so important that all your 36 virtues have to match? Wouldn’t you be able to spend your life with a person who probably has only 24 planetary positions matching with yours?

And to think of it, all this has really not got anything to do with the person in question. Why do all these extra requisites become important than the person or his/her character or the kind of understanding that you share?

You may be in love with a person. But if all these conditions aren’t fulfilled, then you are doomed for life. You are going to be strung around somebody else’s neck. You may try and explain as much as you want about why the person you love is perfect for you but it won’t work. Parents are greedy when it comes to their kids. Everything has to be prefect for them. Nothing short of the best will do. Only that the kids don’t think of it as the best for them.

Your parents may not be asking for dowry, but if these become the major criteria for a marriage, then it sure fits the definition of what I call as the Greedy-Algorithm-of-Matchmaking.

Back to where i belong...

Thanks to a friend, who helped me put my ideas into the right words in the form of a poem...


Here I am now wondering why
Typing away memories and days gone by
Talking about myself to someone unseen
And about life as it had been

He asks if I have made many friends who matter
And I tell him we gel as well as oil and water
It took a very long time to make them see
The difference between what I am and what they thought me to be

Breaking the stereotype of a delicate darling
Forever dependent on men for their caring
For support and solace I look to myself
I have made them aware what it is to help oneself

Great pleasure it gave me to beat them at their game
Or to talk in a crisp tongue all the same
To break the myth that in their world they were rulers
Or that I could race when they were thumb-twiddling losers

It hurt them to know that I was better with my mind
And could code and think very much like a guy
Not literally, don’t mistake me; I am a girl with focus
What you see is what you get, There is no hocus-pocus

Here I am now wondering why
Typing away memories and days gone by
Talking about myself to someone unseen
And about life as it had been

About the life that changed from the closed, narrow minded one before
When I wasn’t this shrewd or this ruthless or competitive to the core
About the time when I wasn’t a hypocrite, and mindful of my thoughts
I was innocent and naïve, never caring what I got.

There was a time when I could walk about in attires I desired
I was happy being the small-town girl, a mind neither muddled nor mired.
I hugged my nears and dears the way I wanted to all day
Without any airs and fancies or thoughts of what people would say

There was a time, a place where my friends wouldn’t judge me
Neither care about what I wore or how I talked about the life that I see
They were simply happy that I did well and started to rise higher
They wouldn’t hold me back or stifle my desires.


Now that I have left all that behind
Adapting to a new culture, a new facet of the mind.
This Barodian is now singing a Hyderabadi song,
Hoping that someday life takes me, back to where I truly belong.

PDA

Going late to office, travelling in 7-seaters and buses is a different kind of an experience altogether. I had one such experience yesterday, and it wasn’t a very comfortable one. No, I am not talking about the discomfort that such kind of a travel can cause where four people are trying to fit their fat bottoms on the same seat and you try shrinking yours to half the size to fit in the place or maybe just rest a single bum on the seat. That’s a different story. Here, I am talking of the kind of discomfort you feel when someone is making a show of their personal life right in front of you. PDA – Public Display of Affection.

There was a young couple sitting on the seat opposite mine. They were only holding hands when they got in, which was pretty OK by me because they were a couple. But soon after they got in, the guy started giving a shoulder massage to the girl. What was this, a mobile-spa? That was followed by the poking – tickling – finger-walking on her hands routine. Here the girl was blushing and egging the guy on. And it was me who was feeling embarrassed looking at them.I didn’t have anywhere else to look (bad positioning). I kept giving them disgusted looks, hoping they would get the hint. Alas! They couldn’t have and it took me a long time to figure out why, tube-light that I am. I had my scarf over my face, bandit style…

I recollect another time when I accidentally walked into somebody’s “love-scene”. I love walking, that’s the form of exercise that i enjoy the most and I usually go to parks for that. Its awkward when people get their bedroom stories out in the open. And its not like Hyderabad is as crowded as Mumbai where people cannot find privacy even within the four walls of their bedroom. The couple would have been beaten to death had some specific moral policing activists caught them. Under the tree, buttons of the shirt askew, the girls hand quite close to the belt buckle, maybe a little lower… cant say much about the girl though. She and the guy’s hands were in the burkha and her face wasn’t visible either because they were in a lip-lock. The moment I passed by the girl pulled her burkha down. Perfect protection against recognition, I say! I could have sworn.

Why cant people keep their hands to themselves in public places. Your hands don’t have to be all over somebody else. Why not take your love and passion inside the bedroom? Why embarrass yourself and others? Why?

The perfect recipe for disasters...

My fight today with N and N for the silliest reason in the world has put me down the dumps. As an afterthought I find it funny how the little things can make or break/take away your day. I wonder if these kind of things happen with other people too or is it just me and my wild mood swings. My friend says I brew the most perfect recipes for disasters from the smallest of things.

Situation 1: I come back from work, tired and hungry.Mom has had a rough day too.

Me: What is for dinner mom?
Mom: Pumpkin
Me: Again? (Looking thunder-stuck, gaping with my mouth open.)
Mom: I haven’t had the time to go to the market. And I made daal for you.
Me: So you made pumpkin? You know I hate it. (I choose to ignore the other half of the statement)
Me: You just make what N likes. You pamper her so much. Nobody cares about me. (N happens to be my younger sister.)

Lo! I go sulking for no ‘bright’ reason.

Situation 2: it’s a lovely sunny morning. Makes me feel cheerful. I decide to dress up in accordance to my mood. I dig into my cupboard. I try on a few clothes, unable to decide which looks good. Basically I don’t like any of those. So I go to my sister’s cupboard. Turn it inside out. Make a mess of it and finally settle down on something. And like it happens with all sisters, she wants to wear just the same dress that I pick out on that particular day. There is nothing that I can say because it’s hers, not mine.

Lo behold! I get irritated and throw a major tantrum about not owning any good clothes and feel like a peasant for the day even after dressing up in my best.

Situation 3: You are busy and are concentrating on a task at hand.
At the same time a friend calls you. You tell him you are busy and will call later. He accuses you of being busy always and never having the time for friends. You get a little irritated by the statement, but hang on. He starts off politely by asking your whereabouts and how have you been and about the work and what else have you been doing lately. You answer courteously but in short sentences, wishing hard that he would put the phone down. You try cutting in through his sentences, not wanting to listen to what he is saying. Basically you aren’t really interested. Especially not right now.

I for one generally tell the person at the other end that I am not in a mood to talk and will call later on my own accord when I feel like talking. Wonder how some people don’t get the message even when it is so loud and clear. They keep questioning you, probing your personal life.

Lo! I get angry, and no matter how hard I try, I end up furious. That is when my bluntness takes over. I am not responsible for what I say after this. You are getting only what you asked for.

Broken...

“What do you think, nothing hurts me?” , he said.

The only line he could come out with for a long time. Everything else was lost behind the tears he was trying hard to control. He closed his eyes, wishing, for that one moment, that she would disappear, cease to exist, and so would his world

She was in a fit of rage, and it wasn’t entirely her fault. For some things, she had reason to blame. Some of it was probably just the negative feelings that had been bottled up within her. They hadn’t had their share of quality time together for a long time now. And both of them were beginning to complain, one vocally, throwing tantrums and the other in silence.

All the reasons that had got her to shouting out loud, hurt him too, and so did her words. He felt shattered. The relationship that they had so lovingly built seemed to be crumbling. She had said she did not feel loved anymore. And that’s what pricked, stabbed at his heart. That’s where the dam broke. How was he to tell her that he was mad about her? That nothing apart from her mattered. That all that he did was for her. And that she was the constant thought in his mind, day in and day out.

She had shouted till she couldn’t have gone further. She had broken down too and begged for forgiveness. His pain reflected in her eyes. He could see that she was repenting.

He had asked himself one simple question when she was done shouting at him. Did he still love her? The answer had come to him instantly. Yes. Did she deserve to be punished? Maybe. But he wouldn’t. He knew they could work it out. All that it needed was a little bit of time, patience and understanding.

Looking out from the balcony, his thoughts were only about her and how he could make up for what they had lost. He had promised her his entire life. And he was going to keep the promise. Nothing, nothing could make him think otherwise.

Silence....

Sitting in that dark corner of her room, she thought about the day when she had first met him. The argument they had back then had united them though they were fighting with each other. And there was today’s argument. They were fighting for the same cause, their grounds were the same and so was their battle. Yet, they were being torn apart. This time, the nature of the argument was personal. It wasn’t about their difference of opinion. What stood between them was the difficulty of being together, to be able to devote enough time to the relationship without having to compromise on their careers, which was taking them both to new heights with every passing day.

She had lashed out at him. Her words had dripped with acid and she inflicted wound upon wound on him. She had seethed with anger because she couldn’t see a solution to their problem, except for maybe giving up on their relationship. And that was the one thing that she wasn’t prepared for. She loved him. She was crazy about him. She knew she could find no other like him. Her words had whipped him till he had tears in his eyes. That is when the horror of her action stuck her. But it was too late. She had gone way ahead. There was no coming back.

She begged for forgiveness. She got it too. Such was the man. But she could not come to forgive herself. She had tarnished the beauty of the bond and she knew that the wound would never heal completely.

Here she sat, feeling lost and lonely, playing with a loose strand of hair, recollecting the times when she had laid her head in his lap and he ran his fingers through her curls… when their words and silence both had equal understanding.