Somebody had recently said: ‘Fatness today is like modern-day leprosy. It’s a disease and it most certainly must be eradicated’.
Easier said than done. Last week, social media went nuts when the 40-yet-fit Ricky Ponting pulled off a spectacular flying catch and saved the day for the Mumbai Indians. However, a hashtag that made news alongside Ponting’s was that of the poor lil’ (overweight) rich kid. Everybody who was anybody took a dig at his size and shape and even posted unflattering, photo-shopped photos of him weighing down one end of a couch while his enviously slim mom sat mid-air on the other end.
The boy, by the way, is probably worth his weight in gold seeing that he belongs to THE illustrious business family that could probably make being fat ‘legal’ if they so wished for their little chhokra... but that’s not my point.
I felt bad for the boy and anger towards our ‘samaaj’ in general that finds it perfectly acceptable to be mean thus. Pleasantly plump/chubby/fat people have a tough life as it is. We love our food. We very often hate exercising (it weakens our bones, or makes our skin sag, or some such) and even if we do make up our mind to exercise, it never seems to work.
I mean by the time you make up your mind between power yoga and pilates thanks to the number of choices friends, relatives and Just Dial throw at you, it’s time for the next pizza break!
Then as my good friend ‘N’ says, and I agree: “If I could, I would!!” Which can be translated as: ‘If the bloody world got off my back, I would”.
The other one I heard from a not-so-slim gentleman friend was: “I’m concerned for your health”. I said “Bollocks. I have more energy and joie de vivre than 10 energiser bunnies!”
After all this venting I have three points to make. Firstly, fat does not mean unfit. So if we set aside ornamental value and daadimaa’s fear that ‘tujhse shadi kaun karega?’ I’d like you to rate the chubby person in your life on a scale (not the weighing kind) of 1 to 10 on stamina, energy and happiness. Unless you’ve sucked it out of him or her by constantly pointing to their fat pockets, I’ll bet they’re as happy or sad as the next person.
Secondly, I’m not advocating being unhealthy. I would love to see every woman traipse around showing off her curves and every second guy with a tanned six-pack. May Mumbai be a scene from Baywatch! But that’s a dream, much like a pothole-free road. I’m just wondering why I don’t see us being so harsh on people who don’t take a bath, or people who loot the country, or rickshawallahs who won’t go by the meter, or...you get my drift, right?
And lastly, whatever happened to being nice? We get upset with casteism or racism or sexism, right? Why do we assume that errr... Fat-ism is ok? Beneath those well-meaning, ill-collected layers of cholesterol, the chubbies have a heart that hurts. Yes, they occupy a little more space than the ‘sukda-bombils’ but as my friend Pedro (name changed) puts it, “Your faader what goes, men?”
P.S: As for the chubby rich boy you ridiculed, going by his legacy, he will see YOU in the share market. I bet even years later ‘uska palda hi bhari hoga’!
Malishka is known to breathe out fire and fun on her radio show on 93.5 Red FM. Apart from that, she writes, travels and does plenty of nautanki
@mymalishka
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