An open letter to all those who have been disturbed by my extra kgs

To whomsoever it may concern

The world was never really black and white. And I heard someone once say it at an open mic that it was partly about the color grey.

This is my apology to everybody who has been at some point of time pained by my excessive body weight.

Without beating about the bush, and telling you stories that you might think to be cooked up, I am outright sorry.

I am sorry for being that person whom you offered a bigger slice of cake assuming that my bigger size will need me to have more.

I am sorry for being that person that you once referred to as 'Aunty' in your conversations because I wore Indian as your favorite brands denied me clothes of my size.

I am sorry for being that kid who was always armed with a vehicle as you could not afford me to sit behind you, thus saving us from the misery of an assumed accident.

I am sorry for being the kid who was yet again assumed to begin eating the food and getting done with the leftovers at all those parties that you invited me in.

I am sorry for being that person who could fall but her fall would lead to the consequence of an earthquake, an earthquake that would possibly bring the world to an end.

I am sorry for being that child could never be anything more than your cute, realizing very well how you once assured me that beauty came in all shapes and sizes.

I am sorry for being that girl who was looked at with shock for wearing a dress because fundamentally you created a world in which I was made to believe that the so called ‘nicer’ clothes could be only worn by people with weight as that of 45 kg and something with 30 kgs added to it, won’t be able to carry it with grace.

I am sorry for being that person whose pictures while sleeping were deleted by you because you found them too ugly to be captured.

I am sorry for being all those versions that you created of me.

I wish I could tell you of how my appetite is the same irrespective of the size that I hold and of how the clothes that we wear are not indicative of the age group that we should belong to.

I wish I could tell you of how you lied to me few years ago when you claimed that beauty was much more than skin deep, when not a fortnight ago you called me ‘prettier than before’ on realizing that I had lost few kgs of weight.

I wish I could tell you that you actions didn’t really match with your words when you otherwise did everything that indicated that prettiness was something inversely proportional to one’s weight.

I wish I could tell you that you were not the mirror that I was willing to look into only when I realized that I shouldn’t have.

Because you never gave me the right reasons to lose weight.

You never told me what diseases might follow and how I could die of an heart attack if I continue living with the weight that I have.

You always told me for all these years that losing weight is important so that I could convince some guy to enter my life, and how you never really warned me to lose weight because obesity is a genuine health problem.

Take a moment.

Breathe.

This is what you did to me.

But today, when I go for my evening walks or hit the gym, I am surely not doing it to be called ‘prettier’ by you, or have some guy enter and stay in my life or for all those reasons that spoke much more about your mindset than the need for me to actually lose weight.

So next time, you advise someone to lose weight, at least provide them with the right reasons.

I am not even claiming that I am pretty the way I am.

I am just not ready to fit into your definition of prettiness.

I am not ready to give in to your argument of losing weight.

My health concerns me.

So screw your definition of how to get a guy, how to be more pretty, and of how to match the conventional standard of beauty set by the world.

And please don’t say that you called me prettier just to encourage me because this way I am introduced to your hypocrisy rather than feeling better about my reality.