Inspiration: Looking into the mirror by Raja Ravi Verma. Of course, mine is called Looking into the phone and if you like it, ‘pwess heart’ like the child is doing. Thanks.

Over to P from Hyderabad.

“My body and I have a love-hate relationship. I remember always hating it, throughout my adolescence. I remember, in Engineering college, hating the days I had Machines lab because I had to wear khakis. A shirt and pant, oh the horror! Those thunder thighs in all their glory, not to mention the weirdness that was wearing your long hair in a traditional plait when you’re wearing ‘pants’. I hated pants. I hated getting on the bus in those things. I missed my trusted dupatta, that big flowing length of magic that could cover up EVERYTHING and just let me be me. I hated my body every time I stood in front of the mirror. I felt fat. It’s not a physical thing, being fat. It’s more than that – it’s an all-pervading feeling that’s constantly on your mind, every step you walk, every morsel you eat, every glance you get on the street, every minute in front of a trial room mirror willing your body to just somehow fucking fit into that XL top. It’s never just physical.

Fast forward to adulthood. Marriage. Pregnancy. It’s unforgiving, is what it is. But I didn’t mind. It was a small price to pay for the miracle of life, no? So I paid it. Three times over. But I had no baby to show for it. No life. Why? Because of my genes. Those little itty bitty pieces of wriggly chromosomes that had to be formed JUST SO were not. So I could keep getting pregnant but there was no telling if I could have a healthy child or not. We considered being childless. We considered adoption. We even considered a donor. I felt betrayed by my own body. Fat, I can still live with. But this? What the fuck do I do with this? I was 31, I’d had 3 pregnancies, I was 15 kg overweight, with stretch marks, backaches and on the verge of slipping into an abyss out of which I had no hopes of crawling back out.

And then, when I thought it just wasn’t going to be, I got pregnant again. My body was probably trying one last time. I couldn’t trust it, though, and I didn’t. Every time we spoke about the pregnancy, I used to say “foetus”, not “baby”. A foetus is just a thing. If you lose it, life won’t end. A baby is different. I was guarded with my own body, not trusting it, not enjoying it, not feeling one with it. But this time the miracle of life was truly a miracle. My son was born and he was perfect. The price I paid for that, all that pain, the C-section scar, the stomach overhang that’s like a entire person on its own, the sagging stretch-marked breasts, the flabby arms – worth it. And that’s when, at age 33, I finally finally started hating my body less. Because of all that I put my body through, because all those lines and scars and marks have meaning now. Because I don’t care anymore about being fat. Yes, I’m still fat, but you know what, it’s ok. My son loves squeezing my flabby arms and calls me “gulu gulu, why are you so soft and nice, Amma?”. I don’t feel like telling him that that’s not a good thing. Because it’s not true. I see photos of me in college and wonder how I could’ve possibly thought I was fat because I fucking wasn’t! Not one bit.

I don’t love my body yet, but I’ll get there. Life can sometimes be unforgiving and cruel, but we don’t have to be so with our bodies. I still have “feeling fat” days where I pull down a nice big dupatta on my chest and stay away from nice restaurants or the malls. But they’re few and far between.

I have a lot of respect for my body now, for what it has given me and for it has lost in the process. Because it’s what makes me me.”

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