April 19, 2006

Being Thin

I have not always relished food. (But I do now)

As my parents love to tell me, I supposedly used to spit out any morsel of food kept in my mouth, placed there with much difficulty, and they had to come up with unique ways to distract my attention every time I had to be fed. All the uncles and aunties who have seen my stuggles against food greet me, even now, with a 'Looks like you still don't eat!'

My mistake, completely, I know. Bound to happen if you are very thin. Olive Oyl, my college mates called me. Not because there was a Popeye and a Bruno fighting over me, you would have guessed the reason by now.

When I was trusted to eat a meal all by myself, it was a painful ordeal that would last an hour. Everyone else would have finished eating and the dishes would have been done by the time I finished. Whatever I could, I mean. Mom would kill me if I didnt finish off the plate, so I discovered a very ingenious way not to eat. For every morsel I put in my mouth, I would put one outside the plate. Not in a lump, mind you, cause that would be very obvious. I would scatter the food around the plate, so it would look like I was a very messy eater. I got away with it for a very long time, although I suspect mom was onto me.

With dance and music classes almost everyday, I had to start eating... enough for sustenance, as always. I think a lot of people looked forward to me putting on weight after I finished learning Bharatnatya. Every one would say knowingly, 'After you leave dance, you will put on weight.'

Needless to say, they were disappointed.

A true love of food started with hostel life, with me looking forward to going home every fortnight. Looking forward to eating mom's chicken fry with great relish!

Atleast then I had an excuse to tell people asking 'oh you are soooo thin'. 'I stay in hostel aunty/ uncle/ stranger who I was supposed to remember from eons ago. '
'Ah, the food is very bad in the hostel?'
'Ya' I shrug hesitantly, knowing that my hostel was comparitively much better than any of my friends'.

It helps that my cousins Sush and Shru are thin/ thinner than me.

'Its in the family' is what I tell people now.

'Oh you are lucky then', comes the envious reply.

Until I got back home sometime back, and Mom who recently started gymming, said,' Sush is going to the gym now, to put on weight...'

'Great!' I say cautiously.

'Why don't you start gymming too?'

Can't say I didn't know that was coming.

5 comments:

JC said...

atleast you are a gal, theoretically you have a great evolutionary advantage over your friends ...imagine being thin and a guy with no salman like biceps to boast about, as good as shouting "single and prolly single for ever" :(... I sure need to do the gym

ne way gr8 post, made my lousy day @ office

Vas said...

maybe you should get the gene registered at the Registry of Standard Biological Parts .. Am sure there is a lot interested for that..

Rush said...

@rajagopal,
maybe u do need to start gym.. it helps.. some of my good friends amongst guys are really thin :) hmm, and none of them has a gf, except for one!!
@vasanth,
hehe.. sure wil.. u wil get no grey hair(my granny stil has black hair shez almost 90), and d thin-ness of course.. from dad's side.. altho my mom wud add, bad teeth..thankfully i dont exhibit that family trait ;)

unforgiven said...

I don't understand why guys still think that it is how they look, which is why they don't have a girlfriend.

We're the materialistic, shallow pigs, not girls. Girls will quite easily ignore what a guy look like as long he has what they want the most in a guy (differs from woman to woman, to find that out is the entire art of 'pataoing' a girl.)

There are girls who care a lot about looks but they are a fairly small minority.


Sure looks might 'help' to an extent but they can easily be done without.


Easily.

U said...

Actually believe me.. Start gymming and leave it and then u will grow fat.. thats what happened with me... i have put on weight because of that only