4 days in! 20 more to go. What shall I talk about today, I want to talk about Bollywood and my fascination with the movies (which frankly I think is part of everything I have ever written, fortunately or unfortunately), then there is the relationship with money, then the relationship with people. But literally as I wrote that last sentence down, I realised, let's talk about my relationship with myself.
A part of me doesn't want to and the other part of me doesn't know where to start. Let's begin by saying, I've only now begun to be somewhat comfortable with myself, what i want, who I am, how I am. Growing up in India is hard work. If you are a girl child, it is even harder. And I am saying this knowing fully well i am part of the lucky 2% of the population that actually has it good and easy. In spite of that, and having a loving childhood with parents that love me as much as they love my brother, being a girl was tough and is tough. It's the society we live in. The society that judges us every single minute of the day and the rules you are expected to oblige by, the respect you ought to show whether you feel it or not, the attire you need to wear and the attire you mustn't wear, the words you must utter and the words you most definitely can not.
Good for me, growing up I wasn't anywhere close to my many relatives or lived a quintessential "indian girl" childhood. The beauty about being an army child is that you move around a lot and you visit relatives only once a year for summer vacations and almost everybody else in the defence world is very broad-minded. So my mother never asked me how many of my friends are boys and how many girls, or if we were hanging out at someone's place post 6 pm in the evening if there were any boys or to not wear a particular dress or skirt because it was too short. I never got any of that from my parents. And neither did most of my other army friends.
But every time we went to Bangalore for vacations, there would be comments on how dark I was (which well being South Indian I would naturally be) or how plump I was or how my teeth were sticking out a certain way or how I should't wear that dress because when I sit it inches up a little and a little more of my thighs show or to pay utmost respect to a grandmother that treated me like I was shit. That and a lot more. "What will people say" and "How will you get married if you behave like this" are staple ways of reprimanding a woman or a girl when they are doing something deemed 'inappropriate' by the guardians of our pristine & honourable society.
I still remember, one summer holiday, we were visiting my grandmother in Coorg and sadly, I was always designated as the one who gets to sleep with her at nights. Yay. And when I was a child, I would lay in bed and bend my knees, place my feet on the bed and sleep - that's just how I slept, it was the most naturally comfortable position for me to be in. Bliss. Total. Except that whenever I did that my grandmother commented - is this how you will sleep when you get married, what will your husband think. I must have been 12-13 or 14 max, and I was already being coached on what my husband would think. I know this is a staple of many societies and India isn't particularly hateful towards it's daughters, but there was a recent report that named India as the most unsafe place for women. And what did the government in power currently do? It rejected that report and called it baseless and without data and that "perceptions change...."...that just because it is perceived to be unsafe doesn't mean it is actually unsafe. Hell yea. Anyway, i digress.
As much as my parents loved me and I had friends who loved me too, I grew up thinking i wasn't good enough - like many other women around the world. I wasn't 'fair' enough, I wasn't "thin" enough, my thighs were too big, my hip bones could be smaller, my calves were bulging too much, did I see that fat that jiggled under my armpits. I hated myself and I hated my body. I grew up but I didn't grow out of that hatred for myself for the longest time and to be truthful, a tiny bit of that "ugly duckling" image still stays with me today. I constantly second guess myself, I am never enough for myself and definitely not for anyone or anything else. All of the body image issues eventually resulted in confidence issues. My mother says that my biggest weakness is my under confidence and the ability to not see how beautiful I am. So does Adithya and I constantly don't believe them. I think i eventually stopped using Fair and Lovely face creams only the year I graduated from college. I never thought of myself as someone men would be attracted to (still don't to be frank). And i was quite a shy girl in school and for the longest time, until very recently, I was also not the fittest. I didn't think boys would like girls with short legs, stocky torsos and a plump stomach. A part of me still believes that. So when my biggest crush in class X choose my best friend instead of me, that part of me that believed in my ugliness won. And my ego and self confidence shattered even further. My recent passion for yoga and healthy eating and fitness has resulted in me feeling slightly ok about my physical body - but i am so sensitive about it, that if I put a bit of weight during vacation - I go back to being 15 and thinking i'm hideous. It is constant work, constant as in every second of the day kinda constant, every time i look into the mirror i try to tell myself I'm alright the way I am.
I was home for a short vacation recently and my grandmother sits across the dining table stares at me while i drink my morning cup of coffee & read the newspaper, and says : you're ok, but you know if you were fairer, you'd be pretty. And for the first time in my life, I found the courage to look her in the eye and tell her "well, according to me I am the prettiest girl alive, and you'd be shocked to know how many women would die to get this olive skin tone." I was shaking with rage and sadness both. Thank God for that cup of coffee & that newspaper; for my hands to have something to hold & my eyes to focus elsewhere because I didn't want her to know how much she had affected me with that statement. But frankly, while I put the blame on her 90% of the time, i also realise that she is but a reflection of the pathetic mentality of the larger population in the country. Someone 'rejected' me for being too dark in the arranged marriage market and I by then was comfortable enough with my skin tone to be able to scoff at it. But sadly that confidence and courage about my body type has yet to permeate my being. But one day, I'll be good enough for myself.
Someone long back told me to listen to this voice that's inside my head that is constantly berating, constantly comparing, constantly criticising - would I do this or say this to another person, a person I love? And I realised how hurtful i was being to the one person I need to show the most love to - myself. Why would I treat myself this way? Every day, post my yoga practice, I bow down to touch my head to the ground and say a thank you for this gorgeous body that was able to do everything that it was able to do for two hours, it went everywhere I wanted to take it and with every breath it followed my instructions. I genuinely mean those words. But within an hour, when i take a shower, i am thinking about how fat my lower torso is and how the stretch marks never seem to go away - it's almost like I am two different people within the span of an hour. Sadly, I'm in sort of a worse space right now because I just returned from two months of vacation across the US and London and Bangalore and while I did maintain a consistent yoga practice more or less, just the food was so gorgeous that i indulged and now i'm back to being all hateful towards the bulge in my tummy and the fat around my waist. Sigh, I hope i learn to eventually love myself. They say the 30s is a good start to loving yourself :) So as long as I'm healthy and fit, does it matter that i have big hips? Who defines the perfect body type anyway and by worrying about and cribbing about my body type am I not perpetuating the reality people like my grandmother have used to shame women like me all our lives? So why should we continue to give them the power.
I am 30, single, unmarried, dark skinned Indian girl with big hips and a slight post-vacation bulge around her waist. I wish i had long slender legs and prettier feet and hands and nicer fingers and straighter hair - but these are all for now me. They make me ME. And no one should be allowed to shatter that being, least of all me myself.
Quite a morose post this has been eh? I almost want to not publish it, but it's 11:00 PM and i can't start a new post now and everything I have said here is the truth anyway, so, what goes?
Obviously I'm going to end with a Bollywood song - where would I be if not for these gorgeous lyrics. This one is from the movie Queen which is a coming-of-age; regaining her self confidence post a terrible breakup story of the protagonist, Rani, played wonderfully by Kangana Ranaut. It is maybe the song that describes the journey of Rani, about how she is herself the shore she has searched for in others, she is herself the oars and the boatman if these desert her and even if she is lost, she herself can cross the ocean, and even if a tiny waterway becomes an ocean, she can grasp a twig and find her own shore, because at the end of day she herself is what she needs.
गर मांझी साथ में
गैर हो भी जाएँ
तोह खुद ही पतवार बन
पर होंगे हम
जो छोटी सी हर एक नहर
सागर बन भी जाएँ
कोई तिनका लेके हाथ में
ढून्ढ लेंगे हम
किनारे। .........
Lyrics, Anvita Dutt
Singer Amit Trivdei
Comments
Post a Comment