Extra butter, no guilt

March 24, 2015 08:21 pm | Updated 08:21 pm IST

28dmcdum laga ke haisha

28dmcdum laga ke haisha

Mirrors don’t lie, neither do weighing scales. I am a slave to both, have been so since I was ten and a well-meaning relative told me, “You have such a pretty face but…”

Call it vanity, call it masochism, call it idiocy, but I have spent the last 18 years trying very hard to be seen as slim. Exercise, strange diets, cleanses — I’ve done it all.

But does the move from voluptuous (it’s a nicer word than overweight) to slender, happen? Fat chance.

The thing about being overweight is that you constantly define yourself by it. You are fat in your head; even if you look fine externally. And the world doesn’t stop telling you that there is something wrong with you. “You have big bones,” say kind people. The not-so-kind point out that most of the other bits are big as well. I comfort myself by saying that Renoir may have found me a worthy muse. Rubens, too, of course. And maybe even Titian (if I coloured my hair) — his Venus has cellulite, a tummy and thunder thighs (minus the thigh gap), but she is simply lovely anyway.

Yes, I think I have been born several centuries too late. In an age of razor-sharp collar bones, sculpted arms, six-pack abs and pert behinds, generous hips and arm jiggle are anomalies. Especially in cinema, where long-legged, sleek young ladies rule the roost. And if, God forbid, you have fat genes and an indolent childhood like yours truly, blast the blubber before getting into Bollywood: think Sonam Kapoor, Zarine Khan, Sonakshi Sinha, Alia Bhatt, whose biggest achievement till date appears to be losing those ‘x’ number of kilos.

When Dum Laga Ke Haisha was released, I admit I was a trifle sceptical about the whole thing. Like most people, my notion of attractiveness is determined by popular culture and an overweight, dowdy heroine didn’t seem like my thing. But a close friend, who also struggles with a weight problem, wanted to see it, so I went along, despite being sure that I would be bored out of my wits

But I wasn’t, surprisingly. And I put that down to the sheer likeability of the female lead, Sandhya played by Bhumi Pednekar. Set in a Haridwar of the 90s , the movie chronicles the story of a young couple — the boorish Prem Prakash Tiwari (Ayushmann Khurrana) and his rotund young wife, Sandhya. Sure there are plenty of Hindi movie clichés thrown in, but Sandhya as a young woman comfortable in her own skin, despite the weight, was an eye-opener of sorts. And oddly reassuring.

It is nice to believe for a bit that beauty doesn’t lie in rigid numbers and that kindness, intelligence, charm, courage and wit count somewhere in the world.

As someone once said, “You are not fat, you have fat. You also have fingernails but you are not fingernail.”

P.S.: I must admit that was the best popcorn I’ve ever eaten in a theatre. Lots of butter, no guilt.

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