Sometimes the loathing I feel for my skinniness comes in the way of talking about it. So, with all my strength, I push it aside, and let the words breathe. When I was a child, people looked at me kindly; later, I figured it wasn't because they took me to be stupid or ugly but because I was so thin they worried I had the rickets. As a teenager, I learned that to be as thin meant you kept off the grass; on the playground, the bony ones got beat up and yelled at. I started to occupy as little space as possible. I became like the smallest word in the crossword; a dot or an ale.
In my twenties, I believed beer would help me overcome the slims... as a diet of rice, potatoes and cheese had failed. All the cheap British beer did during my university years in London was mask my blues-I was so slender I feared people didn't see me. And they didn't. They didn't because I didn't want them to. They didn't because each time I looked at myself in the mirror, I felt so graphically unappealing I wanted to reach into the mirror and shake the life out of my own reflection.
When I moved to America, a peer at college said to me, 'You have body issues.' Did my body really have issues? If yes, with whom? The Shiv Sena? The Germans? Vada pav? Or did she mean, I had issues with my body? If yes, did she want to go and kill herself already? But maybe she was on to something. After all, my friend Ambika reminds me of when I went skinny dipping. With my clothes on.
I was 22 when I finished my first novel. My first year in America. The language had been big, the book fat. In short, I was making up for weight. My novel had no body issues. The book was published, finally, when I was 26. The notices for The Last Song of Dusk were flattering; I hid behind them. The notices for me, the author, three-named, often abbreviated, were nasty; I hid from them. Well meaning journalists could undo me without meaning to. A writer for a Kolkata paper said I was 'toothpick thin'. Not only did his casual assessment feel exaggerated-on a good day, I'm an ice pick in linen pants-it made me wonder how casually people can dismiss you for failing your body mass index. After all, if I'd been built like Elvis in his death years, would his profile have said I was made like an army tank, an elephant on steroids, a hippo in a kurta? Never!
But I wasn't overweight. Oh no! I was just so thin I could disappear if I turned sideways.
Only in recent days have I come to terms with the fact that I'm a Thin Person. My friend Nonita extols the virtues of being skinny. I tell her being thin is hot on chicks but on guys it's bad news; it's last season's collection. I say I feel thin enough to be yesterday. She says thin is the new tomorrow. Excitedly, she points out the models on the ramp, rock stars, heck, even the sadhu outside the Hanuman Mandir in Colaba.
But the sadhu paid for his skinniness with one epiphany too many, the rock stars sold out to charlie, and the models were, quite honestly, too dumb to eat. My skinniness, in comparison, is pointless; it is, to force a revelation on a Thursday afternoon, what it is. Neither glamorous nor tortured. Just bones. Some flesh. Maybe they'd been right. Maybe I had the rickets. Maybe I was a toothpick with clothes on. On top of being ugly and stupid.
But words. They have power. Now I know when people see me they think of me as the twink in the corner. Then, I speak. And language gives me muscle; it is my six-pack, my abs, my beautiful butt of steel. If I can tell a good story, and I have a great story to tell, words become my armour. Remember that cheesy quote?
'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me'? Oh lord, we can now fire the idiot who wrote such shoddy copy. Because if you sit down with me after I've had a few drinks, I'll show you how to slash, burn and rip someone apart. With words. But that sort of other-effacement is only half as much fun as celebrating someone with words, giving them definition and purpose. Kindness. Thin People are capable of kindness. Just don't assume that because I disappear when I turn sideways I can't see you. I can and I do, I just don't show it.
I still don't like the way I look. I probably never will. But self-loathing keeps me alive. I tell Nonita thin people will inherit the world, and then spend their lives working on the body issues of The Others. She laughs. She says I'm fishing. Secretly, she says, I love the way I look. I tell her I spent half my life in a kurta because I felt it would hide me and then I spent the other half of my life behind a jacket because I thought people wouldn't notice I was a fraction of their size. These days, though, I'm trying to spend my life being honest. I'm just trying to tell my story. Neat and simple and clean. It's a slender story but, boy, did you see the teeth on it?
BULK UP FASTER WITH THIS WORKOUT
Try this descending-repetition workout, with little rest between sets. Short rest periods stimulate the release of growth hormones. This builds muscle and burns fat, says John Williams, CSCS, co-owner of Spectrum Conditioning in New York.
Alternate the workouts: In the first week, perform Workout A on Monday and Friday, and Workout B on Wednesday. Flip that in the second week. Use 50 to 60 per cent of the weight you can lift once. Do 10 repetitions, rest 10 seconds without letting go of the bar, then nine reps, rest 10 seconds, eight reps, and so on, down to one. (For chinups, start with five.) Rest two minutes between exercises.
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