Diary of a Large Girl

In a politically correct world, there is small, average and large. Large is a figment of the mind more than anything else. It can be used to judge you only as much as you judge yourself

Life as a fat person and the imagination of a gnat. That’s what I thought of when I was first asked to write about ‘life as a fat person’. It seemed like an insinuation, that too in a country where broad hips were considered a sign of fertility. Since I was asked over chat, I promptly forwarded parts of the bizarre chat to my friends across the world. The responses I got were vehement for the most part: don’t deal with someone as rude and insensitive as this. It has now become a standing joke with my friends about how my ‘fat’ disease is slowing eating my life away.

In today’s politically correct world, there is no thin and fat. There is small, average and large. Between the lines, though, the fat pours through and judges you when you walk into malls and high-end stores. Or, at least I was asked to look out for such discrimination. After being saddled with the ‘disease’ of being fat for so long, I have learnt to cut my losses, and find stores that don’t make money out of selling you self-esteem. Size, really, isn’t everything.

Puberty, along with its set of hormones and lifelong angst, left me ‘fat’. At the time, I needed to be one of the babes to land the boys; instead I was the tomboy who was friends with them all. I was their secret-keeper. My ‘crush’ on one of them led to a confession (since tact is not my forte). What followed was typical middle-school behaviour. Ostracisation. From captain cool, I became the class mongrel.

Though it was hard on my ego for a while, I befriended the nerds of the class. Nerd central, I realised (with much gratitude), was a far more accepting and warm place than the cool thin planet I had formerly inhabited. The creatures in my new environment blew no air kisses, they lazily acknowledged other earthly forms with a nod or two. They happily sat in a corner reading their books (cool girls don’t read so much, you see), and competed in quizzes with an infectious passion. But most of all, I didn’t need to fit in. I was still the tomboy, and the boys were just nerds; sexual activity was not yet coded into brains and other body parts.

The end of school, however, brought with it many challenges. College with its promise of unabashed fun and little study seemed like a bubble I would happily be a part of. Unfortunately, as a born-again nerd, I liked books too much now. I wondered if I should try and be ‘cool’ again. Or should I just stick to going to the lab, attending class and studying like a good girl; make coffee for mummy when she gets home in the evening and begin to think of Einstein as the hottest thing on the planet.

To relieve my brain of the stress of thinking, I went off to ‘Darj’ for a course in mountaineering. Mountaineering camp, however, was not a kind place. I was constantly told about how ‘fat’ I was and how I would not be able to rock-climb or hike to save my life. But to be able to live in ‘Darj’ for over two weeks just in time to see the monsoon take over the plains is a sight and experience no amount of slander can spoil. That’s not to say that I didn’t throw in my cheap shot or two; a certain Everester’s face was priceless when I actually took up his challenge of climbing an overhang rock face. I didn’t see him around for the next couple of days. When he came back, he made no eye contact. Lesson learnt: fat is in the head.

When I enrolled for college, I decided to stick to the nerd gang. But I didn’t always make the right choices with friends, and for the first couple of years, college was a lonely place. Thankfully, my nerdy peeps from school kept me sane through it.

I finally chose to leave the science pack and branch out into journalism. From lab coats to taking quotes was a leap of faith at best. Journalism took me to my bête noir—the internet and computers. It was on the internet that I met a boy who would turn out to be a significant part of my life. We began with hating each others’ guts, but one bizarre internet conversation later, we realised that maybe we did like each other’s company after all.

When I was actually supposed to meet him, I wondered what he’d think about the way I looked. Considering my wardrobe styling hasn’t always been stellar and I was just breaking out of my ‘aunty’ phase, I was worried. Thankfully, the boy was more vain than I, and way more hardworking. Most of our time was spent catching up. And over the telephone and internet, what I wore didn’t matter so much.

While things went from non-committal to bust soon enough, I was one baby step on to the relationship wagon. From that to end of college was peppered with a few, ‘might be dating’ moments, which in the angst-ridden time that college was, left me briefly jilted. But somewhere along the line, I realised I had more growing-up to do before I could be in a co-dependent relationship. And to do that, I needed to get out of Bombay.

Moving to Delhi, despite the difficult adjustment period, was the best thing to happen to me. On my own, I was freefalling for a while. Inevitably, it led to some stupid choices in courses and boys. Then again, I ran away from the latter quickly, unscathed, and the former kept me sane. In the course of my now half a decade in Delhi, I have realised that academia is what gives me sanity. I began to buy clothes that didn’t drown me because I no longer wanted to slip into the background. And most importantly, the angst-ridden, black grunge look from college was passé. There was so much more to life. I eventually realised I liked solid colours. I have also realised I like wearing my kurtas with Nehru jackets in many colours and tunics. Coming out of the underconfident closet was more important than coming out of the fat closet. I am still inching my way out of the latter.

In the many years that I have chronicled above, I haven’t lost a lot of weight. But I have let go of the baggage that came with the weight. My fat isn’t my defence mechanism. It’s a product of a deadly combination of gluttony and a sedentary lifestyle, partners I am desperately trying to divorce. Eventually I hope to shed them, and with that, shed some of the underconfidence they gave me. But till such time, I am piling the colours on. And not so often, the cheese.

About The Author

Ramya Swayamprakash