How to Deal With Fat-ness

A decade of waiting and longing and praying and yearning and praying some more later, my parents prayers were finally answered on the morning of the 8th of June 1993. The corridors of the small Kunjhalus nursing home were lined with every single member of my family (which makes up for almost the entire island I live on, yes, I live on an island called Vypeen). They all literally came. As my dad waited patiently and very anxiously, asking the passing nurses how his wife was (as if they had a clue!) my aunties and uncles sat in the room deliberating whether I would be a boy or a girl and who I would look like, God forbid, I didn't look like either of my parents! “My Jesus!” They were already planning ahead on the gossip they would spread if that was the case. (“Hmmmm.... child looks like that bloody neighbor of theirs, Andhapan, men!" No offence aunties and uncles, I know it’s an Anglo thing! I love you all!) 

What seemed like an eternity later a nurse handed my dad a rather large looking bundle saying "Inna, nigalude kutti!" (‘Here, your child’) after staring blankly for a minute my dad ran after the nurse saying "Aiyo.. Sister (nurse) this child is mine eh? My baby is one month premature... this child is so big men... doesn't look like ours also" (As I mentioned before I look like any other Sosamma and Sarahkutty in Kerala. And I swear this story is true! my parents say it to everyone who comes home) The nurse quickly informed him that this is the 'D'souza baby'. Perhaps some other D’souza then? My dad’s questions all came to an abrupt end when my grandmother quickly shoved aside and said “Give the child here. Ours this is men, don’t recognize your own bloody jib or what?” (jib = chin, but used to indicate facial features)

Why am I telling you this? Because I’d like to begin this post by telling you how I began my day. This morning I posted a link to my blog on the Anglo Indian Facebook page because I wanted to know if people really can connect to the things I write. (I love feedback, makes me write better!) A minute later the first comment popped up and a very kind man happened to point out that I don’t look Anglo. He didn't read my blog, he just looked at my profile picture and decided that I was not worthy of posting it there because of what I looked like. 

Let me tell you of my family. My great grandmother Rose was Dutch, her husband Benjamin, whose origins are still a matter confusion (My granddad says Benjamin was raised by manual laborers after his father died of snakebite in the estates in Munnar while his mother died during childbirth) all I know is, Benjamin spoke Malayalam and was a brown skinned man (I can call him brown because I’m bloody brown) now coming down the family tree, my grandmother Verena, is once again Dutch, light eyes, fair skin, brunette (at least that’s what Papa says, I've only seen her hair when it was grey.) and my grandfather, Winnie a mix of Benjamin and Rose, nice milk chocolate skin, black hair and light eyes. Two generations later I never got the light eyes (although my dad has them) or the fair skin (although my mum is fair) and I look, as my grand mum would say, ‘like a pariah!’ (For the record, she never called me that! She loved me irrespective!) 

Just my luck, the people on the page were kind enough to point out to this man that there’s a reason we’re called a ‘mixed race’, I just happened to get more Indian looking genes. Then I took one look at his profile picture and realized that he wasn’t a bloody white bugger with light eyes as I expected, actually he looked a lot like me. As my grandmother would say “Chatti calling pot black!” (Back in the day the soot from wood fires turned all the vessels black. Chatty = clay vessel)

So anyway, back to my intended post.

From the day I was born I was... big. Call it what you will, big bones, hormones, slow metabolism, adipose tissue, insulation, heavy, fleshy, beefy, large… The list goes on till kingdom come. I call it fat.

In a world obsessed with Size00 (yes, that’s double zero) I am an unlucky Size13 (As if being Anglo isn't ‘in-between’ enough, I’m also in-between Size12 and 14) I am not allowed to wear shorts or skirts because my mother says I have ‘fat thighs’, thanks mum, way to fuel my insecurities!, Last week when I asked for an extra helping of custard my uncle quickly replied “Eat, eat, you’re a growing child, growing breadth-ways!”, Palazzo pants (those wide legged airy things that look like my granddads pajamas) are my new best friend and the other day I told a friend that I was planning on joining a Zumba workout and he immediately laughed and said “Hey, but you’re in shape… oh wait… you ARE a shape...Round!” and then laughed like a maniac. For plus sized women, this is battle we fight every single day. One that we always seem to lose.

There was a point when I starved myself. In college my usual diet was a samosa and 10 cups of coffee a day. I once went on a fruit cleanse for a week, didn't lose a pound and almost fainted. I've heard of girls in college eating tissue paper to lose weight. I even used to go running and swimming (yes, both!) every morning for a month. Didn't make much of a difference, even if I did lose weight people would still call me fat. 

I’d like to go on and tell you that “And then one fine day, a coconut fell upon my head and I just topped caring! Just like that! And nice then my life has changed and I magically lost 10kilos!”…(yes… in my grave…) but sadly, the world doesn’t work like that. As much as I say you should stop caring, you just can't. People wont let you. 

Every morning I feel like a beached whale sitting on a scooter as I go to work. Every time I take a second helping my mother rolls her eyes and I instantly drop the spoon. When I unearthed a 2 year old pair of jeans from my cupboard and it didn't fit, I cried. But today as I was packing for a trip to Chennai and I realized that most of my clothes made me look like Mr. Potato Head with love handles, I thought of what my grand mum would have to say. She always told me not to give “Two hoots” to what people would think, but what about my demon mind and its insecurities? And then I realized she would say “Count your bloody blessings child, don’t lie and cry like this, there are bigger bloody fish to fry!”

To all self-conscious-of-their-weight women, read this and read it well. We have a lot of things to be proud of. We’re like camels; we can go for days maybe weeks, without food. (a skinny girl will drop dead in a couple of hours) We can fall down and not get hurt, extra cushioning, baby. (No, we do not bounce when we fall!) We can make threats like “I’ll sit on you and you will die!” and mean it. We do not require a life jacket or a raft, we float (I don’t know about you, but when I go swimming my cousins can dive n sit at the bottom of the pool but however hard I try, I just float to the top). We don’t need to use padded bras (or in some cases stuff them with tissue paper) and when Sir Mixalot was writing Baby Got Back (“I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie…” no.. I refuse to mention Nicky Minaj’s Anaconda!) he had us in mind. But seriously, there are benefits to being fat. 

So according to a scientific study, men are genetically and unconsciously programmed to choose women who have wider hips because we, (wide hipped women) produce healthier and more intelligent babies. Apparently the ‘adipose tissue’ in our thighs has genetic material that boosts our baby’s intelligence. You think that’s it? According to researcher Caroline Pond, her 'critical breakthrough' was to see that fat is strategically placed around the body to perform a variety of vital tasks: to supply rare nutrients to our muscles, heart and immune system, and to regulate their activities. In humans she says, fat is distributed in about a dozen discrete depots, some of which are carefully lodged around lymph nodes of the immune system, in muscle and on the heart. Singlehandedly she has challenged the centuries-old view that 'fat is just fat'.

So be fat, but be healthy. There’s no shame in having some curves. Take that second helping. Wear those skirts and shorts, damn the bikinis because, honestly, they’re so mainstream! “Oh…these jeans make my bum look big, is it? Great!”. Burn that weighing scale and with it all those posters and magazine covers of that skinny Deepika and Kareena and What’s-her-face (my knowledge of Bollywood heroines is terrible. I only know Kajol and I absolutely LOVE her). if you ever try to go on a diet (for all the wrong reasons, like ‘it’s my cousins wedding’) slap yourself, hard! If your man tells you that you could lose some weight, slap HIM, hard! (Don’t let anyone tell you how you should look. You know what’s best for you and he should love you just the way you are) Tell your mama that God made you like this. (It’s nice to blame someone else for your weight gain once in a while. Ma, I promise I’ll confess for writing that) Flaunt those thighs, ladies, and do it with pride. 

P.S: My boyfriend is singing 'I like 'em big, I like 'em chunky' in the background. Best motivation ever!