Fat To Fit

“Size 29, Size 30, Size 32.Phew! This is tougher than mountain climbing. This is the 10th shop we have visited. That’s the reason I say, eat less, stay healthy, be happy,” barked Mr. Sridhar.

“You mean, I should stay hungry and become an ideal candidate for a scare-crow stick?” she whimpered.

“Phew! From where will I get a groom for her?” cried Mr. Sridhar.

Mr. Sridhar had just one headache in his life. One headache had taken over his life. This headache had no recognized cure by the greatest physician. That was his daughter Dhanya.

She possessed just one shortcoming. She had brains, but no beauty. She had a large heart but a larger tummy. She had the greatest problem in the world. She was giving competition to pumpkins and watermelons. Jackfruits despised her and cabbages protested against her. She was fat.

A blanket of glow filled the street, as though the stars had descended from heaven for celebration. Fireworks took their place in the sky, simmering with glory. At one corner of India, the books considered themselves very lucky than the festival of Diwali. They were seldom left to dust nor to waste. Dhanya chose them over fireworks or celebrations. The lehengas in the shops waited to be blessed by Dhanya’s touch. Dhanya wanted to make them her lifelong companion, but her volume triumphed over her. “I will never fit into these! They are for slim people”, Dhanya mumbled feebly and consoled herself.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

“Happy Diwali Dhanya! Come for offering prayers to God. We have set up our house. Come with mom to take the blessings,” smiled Usha aunty as she opened the door.

Usha aunty was the neighbor who neither failed to celebrate any festival pompously nor did she fail to invite all her neighbors. But, sweets were scared of Dhanya and so were Dhanya of sweets. Sweets feared invasion, exploitation, and persecution while Dhanya feared aggregation, expansion, and criminalization, of her weight. She buried her sweet cravings within herself.

If books were her refugee, jogging was her dreaded enemy. She was introduced to this dreaded enemy at the age of thirteen, by none other than her dear father Mr. Sridhar. The early morning alarm crowing broke through the focus of her dream waves. The ensuing morning jog was like bouts of bouncers in a single cricket over. Neither was she good at ducking nor at hitting the ball out of the boundary.

There were times when the whole neighborhood was witness to the father-daughter frenzied conversations early morning in the middle of the street. While her father represented India, she represented Pakistan. There was only cross-firing across the LOC, tak, tak, tak.

Little did she know that one day, the college will make jogging her best friend. Ethnic day and Dhanya never saw eye to eye in college. It was a yearly audit of her appearance. That was partly because of her least interest in fashion and in making choices. She felt like a boat, without any anchors; a dessert, without any sand and a pond, without fresh water.

She felt rejected. While her friends fit into the best of the sarees available in the market, she could barely manage the saree over her fat belly. She was the last one to get clicked in the pictures. She tried to skip it but in vain.

“Hey, Aunty! How are you doing? Looking perfect, like an aunty in saree," gleed Srikanth, her college friend.

Dhanya felt like a skinned out chicken. Skinned out chicken ready to be roasted for the evening dinner. ‘Aunty’ had become her perfect prefix since teenage.

‘Today they call me aunty, tomorrow will it be granny?’, she thought distressfully. If saree did not accept her, jeans-tops completely rejected her.

But, one fine morning, when the alarm rang at 5:00 a.m., she was the first one to wake up in the entire colony. She collected the rusted boots from the shoe rack and kick-started the next mission of her life. The jogging park gave her the feel of a battlefield. She had to fight the demons of laziness, inferiority complex, under confidence. They all clutched her with their entangled hairs, there seemed to be no escape.

She had never jogged hard in her life, it was only a lousy side-affair for her. But, some unknown, unseen fire was burning deep inside her. The volcano could erupt any movement. The greatest challenge was the timing of the eruption.

Day one of jogging seemed like an eternity. It was as taxing as a day of punishment. The swellings on her leg were as large as her thumb finger on the leg. “Even if I have to climb Mount Everest, I shall do it. But, not jogging again” she promised herself.

But, the next morning, she got up even without an alarm. She was a lonely traveler in the sea of self-discovery. It’s a challenge to form a new habit, as compared to maintaining one. It takes constant effort, perseverance, and motivation. The fire was burning deep down her.

The story of the thirsty crow which quenched its thirst is well-known to all of us. Isn’t it? The crow did not give up on seeing the lowered water in a pot. Instead, it collected pebbles and dropped into the pot, until the water rose high. Its courage, determination, and perseverance did not go unrewarded. Dhanya was the thirsty crow, searching for water in the parched land of jogging.

Instead of rushing into her goal, she made a steady plan of action. One week was spent in finding the appropriate park. Then, she decided to jog and walk alternate rounds in the park. Expecting to jog 10 rounds on the first day was akin to expecting Olympic gold in the very first try.

One month passed by, two months passed by, there was no change in her weight or volume. She felt disheartened and depressed to the core. But, the volcano in her was yet to burst out.

“Dhanya! I told you to completely avoid rice. Why don’t you try the keto diet?” told Komala aunty.

“We can’t do anything, that is in her genes. She has not disappointed the soul of her paternal grandma by being her carbon copy. That’s her will and God’s will,” told an enthusiastic Kamala aunty.

“Why don’t you try VLCC Dhanya, I was hearing the testimonials of successful people. You need it more than anybody else,” told Rashmi aunty.

Soon, these figures turned thinner and thinner. They were joined by more thinner figures. She was surrounded by these thinner figures. She started running, the thinner figures flew up in the form of stick and came crashing down on her.

“Phew! That was just a dream," Dhanya woke up panting. These dreams were her constant companion for months together.

“I need to get this sorted out forever!" she told to herself.

She thought of taking a professional approach. Any disease is not without its cure. Jogging is not a simple running. It is a definite method with a definite plan of action. She wouldn’t have googled for her assignments as she had done for jogging. The right form of jogging requires the use of your hands positioned at 45 degrees to the ground and parallel to each other.

She had found the golden goose. She used this technique to start a new life. Any new venture requires proper tracking and fine-tuning. It was a penance for the next two months. Daily ten rounds of non-stop jogging seemed scarce. Blisters crowded her leg, she did not seem to notice. Her neck felt the brunt of twist and pain, she ignored it. She felt sleepy in her classes and she slept wholeheartedly.

“It’s been the fifth day of fever, give jogging a rest, what did doctors say Dhanya?” Dhanya’s mom burst out crying.

“No mom, I feel incomplete if I miss a single day of jogging,” Dhanya replied.

“Look at your figure, my little girl. Don’t overexert yourself, you could die,” continued Dhanya’s mom.

“It’s ok mom, once I slim down, I can die peacefully,” replied a resolute Dhanya.

They say that God helps those who help themselves. Not just the fever, her weight seemed to be abandoning her. She felt like a child, who had found its long lost parents. She had won a battle in the war of weight loss.

But did she abandon food habits and go on a dieting spree? No, not at all. In fact, she embraced it more and more. She ate well and ate well on time. In contradiction to accepted facts, dieting might help in weight loss temporarily, but on a long term basis, healthy and timely food is a pre-requisite. She never recollected the term VLCC.

One year later!

“Size 32, Size 30, Size 29.Phew! This is tougher than mountain climbing. This is the 10th shop we have visited. Oh my God! Dhanya, how was this even possible?" asked an astonished Mr. Sridhar.

Yes, she had finally won over the marathon of her life. Those years of trauma, insults, pain, sleepless nights, were a thing of the past.

10 years later.

“Dhanya! You are in which college?”

“Dhanya! I am sure, you are still 23!”

Yes, she no more gave competition to pumpkins and watermelons. Aunties in the world lost one company. Yes, she was the girl who lived.