Being Fat: The Phase of Innocent Rotundity

As per my genesis story, which my mother vividly remembers to the last hair of detail, the night before I stepped into this world as a cute white baby, she had a dream: the nurse broke the news that she had birthed a colossal bear. Well, if the dream was supposed to be a prophecy, it failed miserably. The only thing giant about me, after 25 years of inconsequential existence, is the heap of disappointments I have accumulated in my trophy bag. By every other scale, I am a pretty small guy, with all the cuteness and the whiteness, under the travails of time, having gone extinct ages ago. 

My mother did not like the stark discordance between the product conceived and the product delivered, and this never let her in peace. So right from the moment I could be stretched, I was – by the possessed village grandmas who stretched babies with the force that could pull cargo containers uphill sand dunes. I was stretched in all directions after they dipped me in the mustard oil and made a noodle string out of me. But call it my resilience, I sprung back to shortness. 

The next step was to feed me, and my mother proudly states this fact: 

I ate everything raw. 

From tomatoes to bottlegourds, everything I could gnaw with my tiny teeth was shred and swallowed. Gradually, as I grew up and adapted to the ways of civilisation, I was inducted into the middle class diet, which pretty much shaped the perimeters, surface area and volume of my body for decades to come. 

A middle class diet, to sum up in a few words, is a fake diet. It takes pride in being able to eat what millions can’t afford, it boasts of dal as protein and cucumber as salad, it strives to be aspirational and healthy, but it is as much a showpiece as everything else we put our money in. It’s a rice-potato carnival that ends with a quiet march to diabetes. 

I preferred potato not because it tasted umami, but because its spouse on the plate tasted like a bug. The polygamous potato would often marry a parwal or a baingan, and like the true patriarch, remain unphased no matter what. So it was edible, and so was Roti/rice, which is so devoid of an intrinsic taste that I had to lick salt every once in a while to reaffirm that my taste buds still worked, but has a bearable texture and overall feel. My mother polished the roti with pure ghee, which was the only saving grace. We were made to be grateful for being able to afford food. Every time we revolted against the bland cuisine, a picture of orphaned and famished third world children was put in front of us. Me and my brother were psychologically manipulated to let down our arms for their sake, and resigned to chewing the food like cud. My mother sat and recited the age old tradition of the fox whose greed eventually took him down. She closed the story with the words, “Our old saints ate simple food and had high thinking. “

I hated everything in that story, from foxes to old saints. The only saving grace was Horlicks, which I consumed twice a day under my parents supervision, and four times a day without them. Soon, I became a Horlicks addict. I didn’t like Complan, or Boost, it had to be Horlicks. Not even the chocolate version, but the good old brown, malty, sweet Horlicks. 

I also became an alpha food politician, and went into lunch box politics and all, making sure I’d negotiate a bite out of everyone’s tiffin delicacy. Since I didn’t know much about caste rules back then, I hogged without discrimination. Growing up, when I did come to know about caste rules, I was already so far removed from traditions and customs that I couldn’t understand the sound, philosophical and scientific basis and benefits of casteism, which my older relatives could elaborate on a PPT with the finesse of MIT professors.

Anyways, to sum it up, as a kid, I grew on carbohydrates. And a sedentary lifestyle watching cartoons and drawing comics.

Needless to say, by the time I reached std. V, I resembled a baby Panda. 

“Are you sure it was a bear? “ I quizzed my mother about the prophecy. 

“I only saw the nurse. “She replied. 

I showed her a Panda in one of my textbooks and asked her what she thought it was. She did some mental maths and identified it as a bear, clearing my doubt. 

In India, if you’re a nerd, they respect you doesn’t matter your shape or size. Well, till std 5 for sure. When I was growing up, for sure. That effectively meant that unlike in the western countries, nobody fat-shamed me, so I never bothered to exercise. Although they did make me the umpire in cricket matches, for both the innings, I perceived it as an honour that was rare but deserved. They did let me bat when we played test matches for money. Since there is no LBW in kid’s cricket, I blocked the whole wicket and never got out. 

I don’t remember having much difficulty moving around. Nor do I remember breaking the chair or getting stuck in doors. Size Zero conversations were new and restricted to Bollywood divas. Everyone I knew and looked up to, from Cannonball to Shrek, was wide at the waist. But I couldn’t run much. But this wasn’t a disability, it was a choice. Why would a std V kid run? Wasn’t it enough that his thoughts ran? And some running I did. Whenever I saw the large brown Aragog in my room, I ran to the other end of the earth.

It seemed like I would continue to swell like aunt Marge, but fortunately, or unfortunately, I got typhoid, pox and IBS one after the other. My mother changed the home because the tantrik we called said there was some vaastu dosh in the house. I had been saying the same thing since the house spiders had started infesting the house, but my mother said we needed more scientific evidence. Anyways, at the time we were leaving the house, I had already deflated into one of those famished third world kids in the picture.

To be continued…