Not Fat. Not Skinny.

Kartikeya and I have been planning a trip to Greece for a while now. We’ve been saving up, by bits and pieces, at the beginning of each month—when we are both flush with salaried money—and deposit a quarter of the same into a separate savings account. I, for one, have been thoroughly excited because I claim I can finally do what I’ve wanted to do for ages—don a bikini! So, I’ve taken the bull by the horns and have already, rather avidly, started dissecting the internet for every potential swimsuit style. I’ve been looking for the right colours, shapes, sizes and textures, scouting for images for what might look best. Etc., etc. And then it hit me. Each time I typed in any of these search items: Different ways to wear a bikini / Bikini Styles in Fashion / Swimwear 2014… some of the first few articles that show up in that frenzied search are: 10 ways to get a bikini body, OR even: A bikini Boot Camp.

I’m sorry? Bikini Body? Er, bikini boot camp ? I fail to comprehend what comprises one. The idea that in order to don ‘succesfully’ (yes, that was another of the adverbs thrown casually around) a two-piece outfit that helps you preen, pout and laze on a sun-kissed beach (somewhere in Mykonos, in my case), you needed to look a certain way is preposterous. I mean, one of these articles actually claim to turn your body bikini-worthy! What, pray, is a bikini-worthy body? These articles rattle on, supremely unconcerned for arguments of body politics that might be leveraged against them, and talk happily about exercises you must do to tuck your tummy in, sometimes panning the magical eight-week mark—while some go a higher and more ambitious route by announcing a two-week mark, which includes tons of watercress, grapefruit and not much else. These are, of course, accompanied by images of women with long, shapely legs and perfectly concave stomachs with beautifully flowing tresses falling down lithe shoulders. One wonders about the massive female population that must exist—for we know them as friends, colleagues or otherwise—who do not look that flawless, some of whom have post-delivery stretch marks, or simply big-boned genes. One wonders where all this population has amazingly disappeared to.

Don’t get me wrong. There is NOTHING wrong with being healthy. Nothing wrong with a run, a swim, an aerobics class, a Zumba lesson. Nothing wrong either with preferring tomatoes to tortillas, or side salads to Big Macs. What incenses me is the machinery of social body constructs that seem to be functioning all around us, the horrific idea that these articles pose as normal. It is ‘normal’ to post such articles, normal to encourage aspirations to become ‘bikini-worthy’.  What is even horrifying is that the circle itself is a vicious one. While ‘fat-shaming’ (as torchbearers like Cosmo have called it) ruled the roost of cruelty for decades, people picking on pictures of thighs, cellulite and muffin tops showing, today that has quickly been replaced by an equally shocking trend of ‘skinny-shaming’, almost as though someone turned the wheel back around. The same cruel jokes abound, the same Facebook comments which this time, herald the rule of the ‘FAT’ and ruthlessly bring down the ‘THIN’. One does not eat enough, one is told; it is shameful to look that skinny; one must know one is making the other feel bad by looking the way he/she does. Is there no end? The cycle is tiring; we cannot succumb to cyber revenge each time, to lash out at decades of body shaming injustice that have happened before us.

I was once rejected a date by a boy in the eleventh standard, who told my friend to pass on the information to me, that I was ‘too fat’ to be dated. It had crushed and broken the heart of the sixteen-year-old in me. But it had not made me think he was right. Or even comfort myself with the delusion that he was an exception. Years later, when my body reached the opposite side of the spectrum—so to speak—with tons of happy yoga and gym sessions and an active life, away from my family, living in another city—I was shown the light of the other half of comments. I am NOT saying that they are all unfair or cruel, or that a friend may not gently let you know if she thinks you look unfit. But can we restrict it to just that, please? Can UNFIT or UNHEALTHY be our new paradigms, which stand, simply, for people who are above or under their BMIs thus jeopardizing their health, and be allowed the choice to work on it themselves? Can we ban the use of socially scathing words such as fat and skinny for good, and simply be accepting. Yes, they are both just two words. But they are packed and laden with much more power—often unjust power—than we can possibly imagine, and may permanently bruise much more than the body. They may bruise the soul.

---Urmi