Month: August 2015

Eff Your Beauty Standards

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That was the name of the instagram account I followed a few weeks ago – Eff Your Beauty Standards. I unfollowed them a few days later.

I’m fat. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. There’s no shame or guilt. Yes, people like me aren’t on magazine covers. We don’t get to wear angel wings and strut ourselves in sexy underwear. We aren’t searched and cast in famous movies by every Hollywood director there ever was. We definitely do not match any industry standards in any way. Not even heavy lifting because overweight does not mean strong. A lot of us are quite weak and fragile. We’re often made to feel like we don’t belong. We often catch ourselves wondering if women like us will ever be loved. We tend to fish for compliments anywhere we can get them. Not to boost our egos, but to feel normal. Just once.

The instagram account showed plus sized women with captions that told them they’re stunning and beautiful. It gave them the kind of compliments we all wish for. But here’s the thing – I found it offensive, demeaning and rather disturbing. Not the compliments but the idea in itself.

It was as ridiculous as calling someone a “Skinny Bitch” just because she is a size zero. I have always had a problem understanding why we blame the individual when in reality, she isn’t the one that created the idea in your mind that she matters more than you and I do. It was an industry filled with rude, arrogant pompous asses that believed that their idea of beauty should be everyone else’s idea of beauty and used their power to establish the same across the world, making every one of us feel inadequate, insufficient and to put it quite frankly, like a blob.

Let me help create a better idea of this. I am a size 12. My sister is a size 2. Do I wish for her clothes? Yes. Do I wish the fashion industry would put people like me on the magazines rather than people like her? Absolutely! Does that make her a bad person or a “skinny bitch”? You must be insane.

But surely not as insane as that Instagram account, several overweight artists, and so many others quite like them and here’s why – I don’t want a separate Instagram account that proves to me what I’ve believed all along. That I’m different. That I need to be treated specially. And not in a good way.

Tell me it’s not just me when I say – Fat people don’t want to be handled with care. Fat people don’t want you to “aww” at us and pretend like we’re more delicate than the rest. Fat people don’t want to be differentiated from women in general.

We don’t want the skinny girl to lose her fashion sense. We want the fashion industry to bring us the same kind of clothes the skinny girl wears. We don’t want the hot guy to date us with pity. We want him to know we’re just as interested in sex as the girl in that tight pair of jeans and a perfect butt is. When you see us at a store trying to find that perfect dress in our size, we want you to tell us the way you’d tell anyone else that it’s not available in our size. Don’t hesitate. Don’t make me feel bad about who I am by being too careful. Being too nice. Being too out of the ordinary.

If you want to make me feel better about who I am, stop treating me like I’m different. Treat me like I’m human. Treat me the way you treat the size zero. Don’t give me a special Instagram account. Don’t call her a skinny bitch believing that I’ll feel better if you do. I won’t. I’ll hate myself for singing that song because I know that being fat is who I am the way being skinny is who she is. She’s not a bitch and I don’t want you to convince me that she is. I’m not a bully. Don’t make me one.

If you really, honestly and truthfully want to make a fat person feel good about themselves,

Eff your beauty standards and treat me like I’m just another human.

Chennai Isn’t Just A City, Madras Isn’t Just An Emotion

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I was sitting in an auto, stuck in traffic in the middle of Mylapore. I looked at my mother and swallowed my tears. “Forget it. It’s fine. I’ll stay here. I can leave another time.” That’s the moment I said goodbye to my life and officially moved back. On another day, in another place, it wouldn’t have been the same. But there, in the place I’d seen and admired for years, it felt like things would be ok.

We often move out of the country to study. We find work and our feet stand still. We find a place to live and eventually, someone to live with. It’s home in all senses of the word. Yet, there’s this moment. This moment when you walk out of Anna International Airport to the sound of taxi and auto annas asking you where you want to go. This moment when you can hear the car honking all the way from the roads. This moment when a particular feeling envelopes you like you never knew it would. A feeling of belonging. A feeling of coming back from a vacation. Sure, you’re coming from home. But this place that you’ve landed at, it’s home.

A friend of mine who moved here for a while asked me, “What’s so special about your city?”

I was silent for minutes. Not because I didn’t know what to say but because I didn’t know where to start.

When I say Mount Road, the guide books will tell you about the never ending traffic, loud noises and the fancy malls. But that’s not it. When you’re driving down that road, look to your right. You’ll find history in every building you pass by. This city wasn’t made with concrete. It was made with art.

When you say food, it’s quite normal for that friend of yours who visited a long time ago to suggest some “decent” restaurant. But that’s not our food. Our food isn’t made by that chef whose name you’ll never know. Our food is the one that akka or anna sitting in a plastic chair carefully places on your plate while they tell you the tales of the city’s past and their predictions of the political future.

When they say socializing, I know you think of parties and business meetings. But that’ll never be it. Socializing in my city is sitting on those steps with other foreign return / aspiring maamis for hours on the end while secretly staring at that cute guy whose mom had probably dragged him to the temple. And have I mentioned that there’s a temple or two in every street with the kind of architecture that the modern man will consider “too time-consuming and almost impossible”?

It’s a bit of art, a bit of delicacies and a lot of smiling, helpful faces.

But that isn’t all that makes this city what it is. It’s more. More than words can ever describe. More than I can ever tell you. More than anyone will ever know. It’s home in a way that a home will never be.

It doesn’t matter if you’re from a different planet, you’ll feel welcomed. It doesn’t matter what your choices in life are, you’ll feel accepted. It doesn’t matter who you choose to be, you’ll find your crowd.

The story of who this city is will be different with every person that lives or visits here. For the ones who come with a dream, it is a helping hand. For the ones who come with tears, it is a shoulder to lean on. For the ones that come giggling, it is a friend to play with. For the ones who’ve lived here forever, it’s the loving arms of a mother that’ll always welcome us back with a smile.

And no matter what I explain, it’ll never do justice to this city.

Because Chennai isn’t just a city.

Madras isn’t just an emotion.

It’s home.

And more.

Happy Madras Day!

It’s Just a Piece of Paper

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The glamour industry is known more for its divorces than blockbusters. Two of my favorite A-list couples just recently filed for divorce – Ben & Jen and Gwen & Gavin. The tabloid article had an image of Gwen in her wedding dress, looking absolutely happy and it got me wondering..

What if divorces didn’t exist?

What if the moment you get married, there’s no out? If there is a problem, the two of you have to discuss it and sort it out. You have to find a way to work through your issues. And no, I’m not talking about marriages with physically or emotionally abusive spouses or serial cheaters. I’m talking about the normal couples who reach a point where they simply think “We have too many differences. I want out.”

I’m terribly afraid of marriage. Not because I don’t want to be married but because I’m afraid that someday it will end. I’ve said it before several times, the end of me will not be the moment my career comes crashing down or when I lose a loved one. The end of me will be the moment I hold divorce papers in my hand.

But what if that was impossible? I’ve seen so many people in my life rush to get married. My best friend got married after only knowing her husband for 3 months and I know that when in love the person doesn’t think of ever getting divorced but should there be a law that would never allow divorces, do you think the person would think twice before making their decision?

And very honestly, what is it about signing a paper that kills a relationship that has been built over the years? Through various struggles that have been overcome?

Several years ago, when my mother was holding divorce papers, my dad’s mother walked up to her, hugged her and said, “You are not my daughter-in-law because you signed a piece of paper. Our relationship will not end because you sign a paper again.”

That divorce never happened and there has been nothing to worry about on that scale since but my grandmother’s words never left me.

Am I someone’s wife because we sat in front of one hundred guests and got married? Am I someone’s wife because I signed an official paper that states “You are now husband and wife” ?

And does my relationship with this man just end because I sign another paper that says we are no longer united by marriage?

Does one piece of thin paper hold enough strength to turn every fight, every argument, every struggle, every moment, every kiss and all the love insignificant?

If not, then what is it about a divorce? I know I’ll hear a lot of people telling me that marriage is complicated, you have to think of your happiness and a divorce is unavoidable at times. But why?

If there didn’t exist that piece of paper, what would you have done?

Would you have simply walked out? If you knew that that particular piece of paper did not change your relationship, would you find a way to fix the problem? Would you have stayed?

Or would you have still packed and walked away?

I’m not experienced. I can barely hold a relationship together. But I’ve been raised believing that the concept of signing a paper mutually for the beginning and end of a partnership belonged in the corporate world for business deals and not for emotions.

Not for a marriage. Not for a relationship. And definitely not for love.

Am I wrong?