Yes, I'm fat - What next?

-

When I think of how societies were formed, I can imagine human beings trying to stay together in harmony for survival, fulfillment of partnership, exchanging ideas etc. At some point, when we stopped surviving and started thriving (or plundering) on the earth, we took all of this for granted, elevating the purpose of the group to match human intellect. Now that diverse set of human beings started living together, they established frameworks to define the normal. It was told that these rules are for the greater good and if we are all to live together, we will need to abide them. Sounds great, right? A set of people forming their own theories of what is normal for a majority of the population, thereby ensuring that those who did not fit into that could be easily branded different, outcasts, outlaws, take your pick.

As with any knowledge bank, these frameworks went through various revisions thanks to people interpreting them differently and as of 2019, we have quite a lot of them. Some of us, who don't fit in - physically or mentally - are fighting battles everyday to first reach that level playing field of the framework and then start wondering what to do with our lives. I think it is deeply rooted in us to get this societal acceptance, irrespective of how hard we fight against it. Society has time and again told us that to gain full acceptance, you need to appear a certain way, be of certain intelligence level and conduct yourself in a certain manner. Although the word 'certain' is ambiguous, I decided to use it in this context since these frameworks work differently for different pockets around the world.

One of the points that is common to pretty much all pockets of the world though is 'How much do you weigh?'. Weight, largely defines our appearance, which in turn includes/excludes us from the defined normal. In most cases, weight above normal is a social stigma. Legitimate health risks aside, weight is a huge reason most of us are bullied till a certain age. In fact, let me take that argument further - it is story that haunts us for years on end.

As a victim of bullying and body shaming, I have suffered massively for a large part of my life. In fact, I get to listen to this every time I catch up with someone who has not seen me for a few months. It mostly goes, 'Hey how are you? Have you put on?!' In most cases, I do not know how to answer that question. Should I be nice and laugh it off? Or, should I yell at them saying I have not put on? You help me decide.

Do I want to look thin and fall into the 'normal' category? Yes and no. While I want to lose weight, it is certainly not to fall into the normal category, it is mostly because I want others to see the various aspects that make me who I am.
Do you think I don't control me food intake? Of course I do and try as much as I can.
Does the excess weight not bother you? Yes, it definitely does. Even if I want to forget, there are enough eyes on the roads, seats in public transport, clothes, all made for the masses that constantly remind me that I don't fit it.

Am I smart? I think so - people have found reasons to hire me and pay for the work I do at their organization.
Do I have qualities worth talking about beyond looking fat? I sure hope so - I am told I sing well, can talk in public without much hesitation, play the guitar, provide tech support for pretty much any gadget you own, talk about automobiles for days, probably run a little further than you can and as seen from this post, write a fair bit.

So why is it that no one asks me what I have been up to on my music front? Or how about my blog - why is there no talk about that? Why is it always my weight? Am I so perfect in other areas that you find no flaws and the only way to get to my weakness is my weight? If you think I am perfect, I am flattered, but let me make this clear - telling someone that they are heavy, healthy or fat is no way going to help. Especially when they are making attempts to climb up to the 'normal' category.

Do you care for their health? - I am not sure you do.
Do you feed them or pay for their 'large' meals? - I am pretty sure you do not. So why take pot shots in the first place? Why can't we let people be the way they are? Why can't we make an honest attempt to see other qualities in them that make them great friends, brothers, sons, daughters, husbands, wives?

I realize that this is only one of the norms we are talking about. There are plenty of others who are all suffering different problems and it is only fair to give them a chance to express themselves rather be suppressed by their weaknesses.

If you have read this far, I sincerely thank you for bearing the rant. I hope you are with me in recognizing people for traits beyond their body type. I hope we stand for a society where everyone is 'normal'.

This post was inspired by Bindiya Panicker and her excellent write up on Dark and Beautiful. Thank you Bindiya.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From 'Have To' to 'Want To'

-
Ok, so this was a long time in the making.  One of the suggestions I got to keep fit was to start running everyday, or at least 4 times a week. It did not necessarily mean I had to torture myself or even blame myself for skipping a day or two. The idea behind it was to inculcate a sense of discipline that a gym would probably fail to since going to a specific place to be in shape gets boring after a while (probably). Running takes away the certainty from the equation which means there is always something new to look forward to.  Research has time and again showed us that we think a lot better when we are on the move. This explains why some of the greatest minds always took long walks while introspecting or just walking their peers through their ideas. To be honest, none of this made any sense in the beginning. A typical couch potato, I would refuse to step out for a breath of fresh air instead, utilising the time to re-watch some Dragonball Z, which could definitely have waite...
Read more

Of Stories, Conversations and Home

-
One of the best stories I've heard so far goes like this. In an island of great prosperity, there once lived a group of people who were self sufficient. While the elders went fishing in the morning or worked in fields, children went to school and in the evening, they would gather to talk about the day, celebrate their food, play, sing and dance. It was a harmonious environment that the so called 'modern' world would die to achieve. One day, a bunch of people in suits arrive in a bid to promote their business in this hugely prosperous land. The pitch goes like this - Instead of just fishing enough for your family, why don't you try to catch more and export them, make a ton of money, build a great port, send your children to schools around the world and put yourselves on the map? The locals go - Ok, so what next? To this, our man in the Armani cut suit says - After doing all this, sell all your boats, leave behind all the unnecessary things you bought when you w...
Read more

How Hard is it to Apple, Apple?

-
As someone who is curious about success stories, I laud Apple for their comeback in the computing world with the iPhone. Before you dismiss the article as a fanboy Writeup, my two cents would be to give it a read. This is a vague follow up to my previous post on how Blackberry and Nokia let me down with promI sing starts, but unsustainable ideas.  Without doubt, the iPhone is one of Apple's greatest achievements.  Most credit their marketing efforts to lure customers into buying them, making it a major source of revenue with iPads slowly declining in demand and iPods turning to legacy devices exclusively for fans or kids who cannot be handed over an iPhone. But this article shows how great marketing can only succeed with a great product and unified vision of a company.  While the Mac continues to innovate in it’s own space, there is little to no doubt that with the advent of Windows 10, the PC market is going to boom in the coming years and Microsoft’s reinvigorated focus...
Read more