She used to be fat. Not grotesquely so, just plain fat. She remembered parties, of her enthusiasm and dread. Of looking in the mirror at her svelte friends getting ready and telling herself that the day she lost weight she’d be better than all of them. Look at those large dark eyes and brows, and that chiselled nose…and those cheeks would surely be cheekbones when she lost weight wouldn’t they? And that indent in her waist would be deeper and everyone would notice it…till then she had her dreams, her books, her music and her acidic tongue to keep the insults at bay…
And then one day she was thin. She didn’t really know how it happened, but there were collarbones and cheekbones and pelvic bones…and all she did was run…nothing crash about it, nothing she did to get the attention of that dreamy teenage boy, the stuff that all young adult fiction is made of…she just ran a lot, she had always wanted to…one day she allowed herself to, setting her inhibitions aside and then she felt free…she just kept running…
In retrospect, she looked better than she thought she would…she wasn’t athletic, but she was nicely curvy…her legs weren’t willowy, but they were strong and defined…her face was chiselled and striking…did she gain the much vaunted confidence?
She got a lot of attention, people she’d known all her life suddenly did not recognise her, men looked at her twice, women looked at her askance, became a little cautious around her…and she revelled in it…suddenly she could experiment with her looks, wear what she wanted, dance the coquette routine…
Being good looking and thin was her drug…she ignored everything else in that quest…when her peers were studying hard to reach their dream colleges and b-schools she was trying to lose that elusive 1 inch to fit into that gorgeous dress…her natural gumption carried her thru 3 yrs of college, but where once she could shut everyone in the room with her intelligence and knowledge, now she could only do so with her looks and superficial charm…
Every iota of her being was involved in how to be the best looking in a room, any room…and the sad part of it was that she wasn’t…she was a good looking girl…stunning on a given day, and regular on another…she wasn’t beautiful…she knew that, she thought she accepted it, but clearly she didn’t…
Her entire self-worth was based on how people perceived her looks…if X didn’t compliment her, she’d be down, not knowing why…but if Y said she wasn’t anything special she’d be in a funk for days, knowing why, but not wanting to do anything about it…
Her friends and boyfriends grew cautious around her…they couldn’t compliment another, without her asking them to draw comparisons…conversations began well, but disintegrated into ‘on a scale of 1 to 10 how good looking do you think I am?’…and god forbid if anyone said she’d gained weight! Ceaseless interrogation…self-pity…crash diets would inevitably follow…
It’s sad really…to chronicle her journey thus far…what followed? Did she let the fat girl with all her insecurities die? Did she find herself, the real her? Or did she perish in her quest for physical beauty?
Well that is a story for another day, another state of mind…I’ll keep you posted…
