Body Shaming Is NOT Cool… EVER!!!

All my life people have made fun of me for my size. Sometimes it was as direct as “Aye Moti, ghar pe sabka khana tum hi khaati ho kya” (Aye Fatso, do you eat everybody’s share of the meal at home) or lightly veiled insults like “You would look pretty if only you lost some weight”. It seemed to me that my being overweight and “unladylike” has forced people to blurt out belittling words against me.

So was it my fault??? Really!!!

Such words and more have been dissed frequently by friends, family and acquaintances. Sometimes, school kids whom I never even knew would just pass a snarky comment about my fatness just because they saw me walking by. The most tear-inducing words were said by my then-super-crush; “at least try looking like a girl if you want boys to be interested in you”. That pushed me into my Goth phase and unfortunate makeups and haircuts followed. I am more than happy to say Social Media had no existence in my college days, else it would have been embarrassing as ever. But that is a story for a different time.

If I am being honest, such spite used to make me feel sad and bad about myself. There were times, when the words felt like actual knives being shoved in my heart and as then as if someone was twisting it clock-wise and anti-clockwise motion till the time I could not breathe anymore. My reactions to these were erratic, I would not speak with such people. It was difficult as many were family friends and relatives. No matter what, I held my ground firmly.

I was almost labelled as a problem child. I was hitting school mates for insignificant matters and ran away from home. I desperately wanted to run off to Mumbai and join the Underworld. I had many sadistically pleasurable dreams wherein I would stab those disrespectful people with sharp knives or simply shoot them, because you know, when you are a leader of the Underworld gang, you don’t count bullets or fear any consequences. You are the Boss!!!

The truth is, I am a lazy person and lack conviction in continuing to work out for prolonged periods. Sometimes I lose some amount of weight and sometimes they come back with more friends of their own. Reality of the matter being, I was never thin and as far as I understand I will never be one. However, no matter how I am, does not give the right to anyone to say hurtful things. It’s my fat, so it’s my problem.  

Eventually though, I realized beating up people only gave them more juice to bother me the next time. It was a nightmare for me until one day I decided to switch my “care” button off. Much later I also learnt that this is a relevant method as Vampires switch their humanity button off because the guilt hurts. (Read/Watch The Vampire Diaries).

Now that I had stopped giving any amounts of fucks to such shit, things slowly turned out to be ok.

Of course, I wanted someone to like me “just the way I am” but let’s face it, that never happens. Even the most perfect bodied person’s better half would want something changed about them (may be physically or may be psychologically or socially).

I am stubborn as a mule so now that I have a grip on my emotions, I don’t really pay much heed to things people say about me. But there are those moments, when I am already down and then someone hits me with one of those unkind words, it still hurts…

I only wonder what happens to people who are not as stubborn as I am? Breaking them would be so easy. It is NEVER alright to be cruel to anyone; shattering their confidence with one unkind word at a time should be a criminal offense. Body shaming is not cool and people who do that are neither smart nor cool. They are the quiet opposite of awesome.

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