What is beauty?

Is it subjective to experiences of individuals? Or is it more an objective quality accessible to a subjective perusal? For centuries philosophers have grappled with defining the “quality” of beauty.

I count myself a philosopher; having spent 6 academic years devoted to the study of the discipline. Yet, when I look at the broken mirror in my bedroom; in the shards of which I see reflected an image of mine – held together by sharp edges and glued together plains; a summation of how society has defined me, and when I smile at that apparition with gentle warmth – the “issue” ceases to be anything but deeply personal. For as Shane Koyczan puts it with heart rending honesty, “…when we finally decide to smash all the things we thought we used to be, and if you can’t see anything beautiful about yourself…get a better mirror…look a little closer…stare a little longer. Because there’s something inside you that made you keep trying despite everyone who told you to quit. You built a cast around your broken heart, and signed it yourself, you signed it…“they were wrong””

Only, as I have found for myself… at some point, “they” cease being “wrong”…”they” just cease to be within the frame of reference that defines me – or beauty. Mine.

My story is not extraordinary, nor is it original. I am one of many. However, nobody else’s story is mine. As I tell it I am pulled from the deeply personal to the overwhelmingly impersonal – from “identity” to “society”, from definitions to the limitless; and at the onset, I invite you to journey with me.

I belong to Jammu and Kashmir. Maybe belong is too strong a word for I am dark and fat, and my body at least does not belong there, or in most other places. I grew up learning that all important fact – in ways subtle and crass, in voices aggressive and nurturing, but like mud mixed with molten black plastic I absorbed some of it and rejected the rest. To this day I am weeding that part of my soul that absorbed; tilling the soil of my being so I can have a “me” untainted by unasked for advice, unblemished by unsolicited influences; a me completely mine. I believe I have succeeded to a large extent. The battle has been less gruesome, more weary.

My education started at home. When I look back I see a heap of haphazardly arranged memories creating an innocuous looking mound in the middle of all the love, security and praise that I was lavished with as a child. I remember, at five, wearing a dress I loved only as a 5 year old can; a velvet and lace skirt, teamed with a shirt and a vest. I remember it ripping at the waist, a hand stitching it, and a voice commenting; this is what comes of getting fat. I remember that sinking feeling deep in my gut – I had ruined something precious to me.

When I was seven, I remember my mother’s uncle visiting us, looking at the inert form of my sweetly sleeping sister and saying, “Your younger daughter is so beautiful. Whom does the elder one take after?” I remember, at eleven, being flippantly anxious before the annual class photograph, for some reason preceded by a weighing in ceremony. I remember the relief when I found I wasn’t the heaviest girl in class. I also remember the whispered chatter that followed the girl who was; I remember that she weighed 54 kilos.

When I was twelve and thirteen, my first period had come and gone and I showed no signs of shedding the “puppy fat”. I remember, at the behest of my mother, restricting my diet to twochappatis (flat bread) for lunch and dinner in an attempt at inducing weight loss. I remember the ominous warnings telling me of my cousin sister who was mercilessly teased till she cried every time she came out to play; the jeering voices of her loving cousins calling her ‘aunty’. I was warned that that would be me. Another cousin was nick named “laddoo” (ball shaped sweet) and “pehelwan” (wrestler). So was I for that matter, I was laddoo to my doting granny, my sister was barfi (a sweet made from milk solids, white in color). We still are. My granddad, God bless his soul, visited us for a few months when I was thirteen. I remember crying to my mother about the fact that he insisted on calling me “haathikabaccha” (baby elephant). My mother reminded me that he loved me, and so he did. I have been other animals too. One memorable one being “bhains (buffalo)”. My rolls of fat have been compared to a pig’s fat. The first one broke my heart for it came from someone whom I love unconditionally, my dad, and the second one- an observation made by my mother- just made me laugh in exasperation. She assured me she really meant it you see, she wasn’t poking fun.

At fourteen, I went on my first major diet program; the General Motors’ diet. The excruciating hunger pangs were badges of valour; the praise and adulation that I got from my mother – medals of honour. When I finished with it I weighed 63 kilos- a measly 5 kilos over my BMI prescribed weight. I still have the black body hugging gown I got for my birthday that year. Ah well, I passed it on to my sister – but it’s still in the family, so. I weighed close to 70 kilo’s when I first fell in love at sixteen. It was a man 4 years older than I with whom I was so hopelessly smitten. I was a dancer – I jived and waltzed and did the cha cha. Imagine the joy when he and I were paired together as the strongest dancers to lead the waltz at the NDA (National Defence Academy) ball! Sadly though, he hurt his foot and was replaced by someone else at the last minute. I still remember the horrified shame and covered up hurt at discovering he pretended to be injured so he could get out of dancing with a ‘fat chick’ in front of all his friends. Everyone knew, I was told, but me.

I am no longer 16 years old. It’s been more than a decade since then, and a lot of water under the bridge. He hasn’t been the only man to deride, judge, jeer at or shy away from my body. I have since then truly loved and heartbreakingly lost.

I have since been diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome), hypothyroidism and insulin resistance.

My horrified mother has been told by an artless doctor that I might never have children, and then I have been put on birth control pills. Then there was one who told me that having a kid might fix me. The last one told me that I must undergo bariatric surgery, lose 65 kilos, or die. Only, I’m not dying. I have also been on many “successful” weight loss crusades and currently weigh the heaviest I have ever been. Since I was sixteen I have also marshalled through a mind numbing number of conversations about and around my weight; what might be the cause of it, how I may fix it, and that I would never be loved or get married unless I did. After all, my skin colour can’t be helped, but weight? Come on! Many of my female cousins have since lost weight, married and gained it back. I have been promised untold rewards for the day when I am finally thin.

I have been asked why and how I feel no shame walking on the street with my ‘thin friends’. A question that personal can only be asked by a mother, and only then does it hurt most. Recently the questioning, cajoling and pleading has bordered on desperation. After all I am only getting older and my parents can’t even look for a groom for they know I will be rejected the moment anyone lays eyes upon my photograph.

It defies imagination that the brilliant daughter that is worthy of being paraded with pride in front of friends and family at parties; for her singing and playing the guitar, dancing, photography, writing, cooking, being a university topper in Philosophy, for passionately dedicating her youth to working for the cause of gender equity and sexuality – how this gem of a person is just not good enough when it comes to being attractive to a man, is a mark of social failure for parents who despair of her ever finding a groom for she’s just so fat!

Not she, but I – never good enough? Never attractive enough? Bollocks I say, and have been saying since as far back as I can delve into my memory. Bollocks to those who have inadvertently been stepping all over me, trying to crush a spirit that refuses to be shot down. I have also been crying bitter tears of remorse for the daughter my parents could have had, and the woman who could have caught the eye of a man – been desired, and wanted. Recently I have become aware of just what is wrong with this picture.

The realization has been simple, and as most simple things are: profound.

All the resistance that has been a part of my being, an assertion of who I am, has also kept me at arm’s length from loving who I truly am.

Correction- from truly loving my body for what it is.

The vociferous denials have been loud enough to drown out a sincere appreciation of me. I have become aware that for most part I have felt a gaze following me wherever I went and whatever I did. An impersonal, all pervasive gaze – looking at me dance, frolic, love and live. Even in my most vulnerable moments I have never allowed this gaze the satisfaction of seeing me broken. I have held on – with indignation to a sense of self that is unapologetic and proud. I have been a mirror reflecting the horror of a self being denied. The moment of realization dissolved the silver of the mirror and left the surface a smooth and still face of a lake. It left me free to dive within to depths I had never explored before, once I was no longer undefining myself with an external frame of reference. I didn’t love myself despite being not thin or because of being fat. For the first time I truly engaged with my body, as it is. I looked at its rolling waves and sloping valleys.

I stood naked in front of a mirror, as I had done countless times before, but after I was done noticing the twinkle in my eye, the grace of my hands, the slant of my neck – I moved on to the layers of my belly, the cushion of my back, the dimpling of my butt. I touched my thighs and caressed the flesh of both thighs smushing into each other.

I delved into my rich fantasy life and found that all erotic scenarios I have ever starred in do not have my body in a starring role! In all of those I am sporting a body that I believe I will have when I finally get there. I tried editing the footage of my mind and found that I had never seen fat bodies erotically engaged. As much as I had been inundated by sexy imagery in movies, music videos, in all the Harlequins and M&B’s I had ever read; none of those represented my body…I thus went looking into BBW (Big Beautiful Women) porn videos, scoured through the trashy ones and found a few that were sensual, erotic, blatantly sexual – and had fat women who were confident in receiving their lovers attention.

As much as I should have been aroused, I cried. I was aware of an insistent need to run; to scream at the woman on screen to hide and save herself the grief that would surely follow. I felt the hands on her body and cringed – afraid, and thrilled and disbelieving all at the same time. Once I could watch those videos without a thousand voices screaming at me – I hugged myself and wept silent tears for that girl I had been, the one who was hurt and led to believe that she’d never be good enough –not bodily at least.

I became aware of the voices telling me what fashions looked “good” on a fuller figure and how best to camouflage my body. The voices that informed me that those skinny jeans I had bought would look so much better once I had achieved my ‘targeted weight loss’. I started shopping in size friendly stores and for fashions that brought me pleasure; camouflage be damned. I truly communicated with my parents; without resisting them. I told my best friend to quit nagging me about my weight.

I learnt about nutrition and the FACTS about health and weight; facts that granted me absolution. I learnt that I had allowed unquestioned assumptions about body weight and health to trap me into a cycle of guilt and unrelenting unfruitful effort of mind and body, following the holy grail of “thin health” so insidiously marketed by the weight loss industry. It felt good to trash those beliefs, and yet I was aware that it took overcoming a great inner resistance in accepting that I was not to blame. After all, the next best thing to being thin is being a Fattie who is trying to lose weight- not to mention self-righteous.

I have been living life with a greater awareness of who I am. I have shed the gaze – though I do engage with it. Whether I am biking, playing the guitar, belly dancing or doing the hundred and one other things that bring me pleasure and satisfaction, I am aware that those are things not necessarily associated with “fat bodies”. Not much is, in fact, apart from dieting, exercising and feeling miserable. In the media, and elsewhere, just living the life I live, being who I am, I am aware I am representative of that rare creature (or so societal representations of fat people would have us believe) – a happy fattie living a full bodied life.

Surprisingly for me being dark was never an issue. It just was. I am getting there when it comes to being fat. I am squishy and soft, warm and gentle, sexy and beautiful, deeply mature and endearingly childlike, I am graceful and sometimes adorably doltish and clumsy; I am also still fat and dark.

I look into the mirror in my bedroom and see that it is the mirror that is broken –not I.

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