To the Bone.

Source: To the Bone, Netflix

"I stand in front of the mirror,

stark naked,

not liking what I see,

I could be thinner,

and different,

so I starve yet another night,

surviving on a red apple that does not match

the colour of my cheeks,

I wake up in the middle of the night to a growling stomach and satiate my hunger with water,

I coax myself into believing - just one more day and I'm closer to being thin, again."

I grew up in a household where food was the cornerstone of every celebration. For failure too. Waking up to the aroma of spices wafting through the home was an everyday ritual and I, for many excellent reasons, grew up loving food. I don't remember a single day when my grandmother cooked something simple - there were no run-of-the-mill days. On Sundays when she got a break from cooking, my grandfather would spoil us with singadas and jalebis. Most of my outings revolved around planning my street food indulgence. I've come a long way from devouring delicacies to deviously calculating calories of every meal. Over the past few years, I've turned into a person who hoped her body could look different with less fat in some areas and at some point, I got obsessed with it. I wanted to be a lean machine and guess how I wanted to achieve that? By starving. Unfortunately, I did that to myself for weeks without understanding the nature of my body.

To begin with, I was always a bit healthy; my body frame was never made for skinny. In fact, I was skinny during teenage only because I was malnutritioned and fed myself on the belief that being skinny was beautiful. For the most obvious reasons, all of this led to anemia, lack of hemoglobin, low self-esteem, and an unhealthy relationship with my body. Of course, how can I forget my ability to faint at the most mundane places because I had no energy! I was unfathomably ruthless with myself. I skipped meals whenever I could and it was visible on my face. After all, if you are what you eat and you eat nothing, what will your skin look like?

I often stumble upon a quote on the Internet that women must not measure their worth by a thigh gap, but then each time we upload a picture on Instagram or Facebook, people usually comment "Have you lost weight?" or "Have you gained weight?" Alas, the unholy words! Why is that we notice the weight of a person before anything else? Why is it that we're so critical of ourselves and the people around us? It's deep rooted, but I'm glad people have started talking about this more than before. That eating healthy is great, but starving isn't. That cheat meals are okay but unnecessary diets aren't.

Last night I watched Lily Collins 'To the Bone' on Netflix, which was a flashback of my apparent misery I endured months ago. Maybe I still am frantic about not eating everything I want, but that's okay as long as I don't wake up in the middle of the night with a terrible stomach ache. Nights when I reassured myself that I was hours away from breakfast time. See the pattern with refusing to eat is that it becomes an addictive habit when the desire to eat slowly dies. You cannot stomach most of the items on your plate and you find certain food items disgusting too. To the Bone broaches the sensitive topic of anorexia piercingly while depicting the phantom fixation of an 'incorrigible thin' image. Even when it's killing us. I admit it was painful to watch it but it was a reminder that forming an unrealistic opinion of an ideal body and do utterly bizarre things to own it is more than ludicrous.

I remember the times when my mother would urge me to eat, and my friends would yell at me to finish everything on my plate. I refused to eat. I was beyond logic and sanity. And one fine day after fretting and spending many sleepless nights, I tried to understand what eating right was. I stopped glorifying starvation but I've also reduced eating out. Exponentially, if I must add. I prefer simple home-cooked meals and more importantly, I stand in front of the mirror and love what I see. After embracing more physical activity into my routine, I also see how my body and skin are transforming. Right from the time I was a teenager, I gluttonously consumed fashion magazines like a devil but now, I kicked them out of my life entirely. What's the point of reading something that barely makes you feel good about yourself?

Now if you ask me what my greatest learning is? It's this - Biryani > thigh gap.

Labels.

When I was in school, I was a geek of all orders. I took an active participation in crafts, poetry, science clubs, literary contests, and of course, my favourite - Philately, Library clubs. In spite of being a nimble kid and a participant in almost anything, I was still that weird, geeky and often the ugly South Indian kid from III (A). It did not matter much then. I mean, what would an eight year old know of labels and the baggage they come along with? Well, pretty much nothing.

As I grew older and moved to high school, not much has changed. I was still a good student. I was still fetching good grades. I was still taking part in myriad contests and stuff. But I was still the not so attractive high school girl. I was barely thirteen and this issue did seem to trouble me a great deal. My unruly curls were barely tamed and I had no absolute interest in anything but reading and sketching. I was painfully skinny but I could easily lose track of time, and forego dinner while immersing myself in a project that I thought was highly important. Sure, I did want to be the prettiest girl, but I also wanted to be one at my accord. You know, be a part of Philately club and still be seen as a girl who was gorgeous by all standards. Unfortunately, those standards weren't met. Being the poster child of anxiety, I fretted upon things like this and stayed up late several nights crying over my looks.

I don't know what transpires between primary school and high school, but in high school, everyone turns into delinquents, slowly adjusting to that abominable attitude. Trying to please the world by hurting themselves or trying to please themselves by hurting the world. In due time, I grew older. I transformed. And owing to the transformation, I was subjected to garbage like 'Wow! You look pretty now.' 'How did you change so much?' 'What a splendid transformation!' 'Are you the same girl?' Boys who thought I was a lost case in high school soon turned into men who tried to win my attention. The ball was finally in my court. However, this wasn't high school and I had a bad case of attention disorder. From 'Boys don't like nerds like you' to 'You cannot keep a man', I have been labelled more often than required. And sometimes, for no reason whatsoever. It troubles me even to this day, but hey, I've been developing some thick skin these days.

I label people too. Based on their actions. Based on how they deal with their fellow human beings. Hell, even with animals. I am not sure if it's alright to label people even on that but I am sure as hell that it's better than labeling people based on what they do not do.

On interacting with my younger cousins these days, I happen to realize that nothing much has changed. High school still does seem like a place where geeks remain to be treated as smart yet ugly people while the good looking ones are treated as the dumb ones. Labels, I tell you! Hard to change. Hard to pet. They come in all sizes, shapes, and colours. Right from you to the stranger sharing your seat in a local bus, we all have been labelled (often nastily) at several stages of our life.

Clearly, it's no fun.

We all still do it and go overboard with it.

What we don't realize is that they don't have to define us. We are not things that come in boxes with tags and labels. We could be a lot of things, but a mere label? Well, that's not what we are made for!