The Only Thing that Changes with Body Types is How People Look at You

I remember the time, when I got down from the stairs of Nizammudin Railway Station and asked my brother if I look weird. He answered in affirmative and added, who wears make up (Kajal) with Cargo pants. With that remark, I was very pleased with my look. Since then, it has been sort of a quest for me to blend different things together making it unconventional. But more importantly the aim has been to become unpredictable and hence, cannot be contained in a particular category which means that I can follow the mainstream fashion too when I want. On some days, I wear kajal but not lispstick, on other days even if my hair is uncombed; I make sure I put on lipstick. I wear sneakers with my kurti, and flats with a dress. It doesn’t make a difference to me, but it hurts the eyes of the ones who see me, scanning me top to bottom. My purpose is served the moment people are uncomfortable, even if they don’t say it out loud, you can see it on their face. I am not against the ones who follow the convention; I am against the idea that unconventional or the-not-mainstream fashion is unacceptable.

Uploading a photo on Facebook, getting comments and personal messages such as, your taste in fashion has changed or you have more options available to you in clothes now is like saying, you had access to Nicholas Sparks, but because you are into a literature course, Jane Austen is available too. Doesn’t make any sense, right? Yeah, think about it.  I read Pride and Prejudice and Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities in school. Literature or not, all the books were/are available to me if I allow myself to dig deep.  The same goes for clothes too. Also, since when did photos become more about the people in it than the person behind the camera? The shot can be a great one, but how does one judge the person and relate it to his/her real life given the amount of editing it goes through before being post. More importantly, although photos on social media are how we choose to project ourselves but then between so many photos, how can only one of them define us?

(From Left) 1. Clicked in April 2016
2. Clicked in April 2017 and the one behind camera made me stand/sit.
3. Clicked in April 2017 when I was asked to pose on my own.

I have come to believe that the only thing that changes with a change in body type is how people look at you. You have the same options in fashion available irrespective of how thin or fat you are; you choose to stick to some of them wondering the others might not suit you but everything is available nonetheless. The dresses that are making me, “into-the-fashion” person were worn a year ago, but nobody noticed because they weren't visually as appealing with my body type then as they are now. I keep going back to the photos of these repeated tops and dresses, and cannot help being amused. People think, my taste in fashion has changed. But the fact is, their eyes have been set according to the conventional body type but they are not going to accept it even though there is nothing wrong about the acceptance.

            There are different types of people one meets during the period of losing weight.

1. The ones who will bug you about ‘tips to lose weight’ but wouldn’t consult a dietician if you ask them to.
2. "Aren’t you eating anything? You have become so weak.” Can we just do away with the myth of the act of eating makes you stronger rather than what you eat?
3. "Your chubby cheeks made you look cute, we liked you that way." Aww, you can't pull my cheeks anymore? Win win for me! 
4. “Oh you look so good now. So much better than your earlier fat self”, making you wonder, hadn’t they said that my weight was perfect back then.
5.  “You have so many options available now. Your fashion sense has improved so much.” Yes, I roll my eyes to them thinking if only I were vaguely interested in fashion the way they mean it, no offence intended.
6. You also meet the ones, who will be oh-so-sarcastic about your clothes and other influences that they assume, because they choose to focus on those Facebook and Instagram posts that they feel is different from who they think you are.

And in all these types, I hope to meet a person who isn’t affected at all by how my clothes suit my body. Sure, a sense of disbelief or awe is okay, as long as it doesn’t question the type of person I am. I like the comments that say I have become thin, because they are stating an undeniable fact, rather than the ones that say I look good or anything else, which is a subjective opinion which I completely understand now. No offence intended, again.

I am probably talking from a privileged position. Not many can lose weight, even for the right reasons, as easily as I did. I know for a fact that I will gain those lost kilos in a couple of months again if I want to and it is really tempting to do so. I cannot say I haven’t been benefitted from this change in body type. I walk faster, I feel more active and stronger than I used to ten months ago. My medicines have gone down and I eat better instead of dying every day in gluttony. And and and my breasts don’t make me feel that I am the hugest person who cannot even see her own feet. Yes, that’s how my amazing weight loss makes me happy at times when I am not thinking about the inability to eat as much junk food as I wish to and how the fancy summer drinks aren’t an option to me to drink all day. For others, body type is inherently related to fashion, which again is quite amusing but not a surprise in the world we live in. Being a victim of body shaming throughout my teenage, now I nod with a smile and thank you, every time anybody comments on my (undeniably absent) mainstream fashion sense and conventional body type. After all these years of struggle to accept my unconventional body, I cannot possibly be flattered by a conventional one, irrespective of the attention it gives me.

In the end, I wear shorts, dresses, tops, kurtis having no idea about what colour needs to be worn in what time of the day. I go black every time, everywhere. When I need that extra ounce of confidence, I put on my Harry Potter T-shirt and unwashed blue jeggings that fit like pjs, because baggy is my comfort zone. Do not get me wrong here, I have a lot of respect for people involved in mainstream fashion (based on the dialogues in The Devil Wears Prada) irrespective of my personal opinions. Don’t I get attracted to a ‘nice’ dress in a ‘nice’ body? I certainly do but I do not judge the personality of the person by it. But more than that, I am awed by ‘nice’ dresses worn by ‘not-so-nice’ bodies and ‘not-so-nice’ dresses worn by ‘nice’ bodies. Some might call it ignorance, but I see it as courage and lots of it because I have been there and I know what it is to put on the first pair of shorts when all your life you have hid your legs. Yeah, I am a biased privileged woman writing a blog post about her way of looking at fashion without dismissing the mainstream to nothing, to criticise how convention has imbibed itself on us but will be criticised for thinking too much. To which I can only say, thank you.