Resizing..

“And I have lost exactly 6 kilos in a month”, came the voice from the other side of the cell. “Believe me, just go for it once…I assure you, within a couple of days, you can slip into your sister’s slim jeans and after that there’s no looking back.”  The voice was filled with a luring promise-something many girls think to be true, ’Iceberg pure’. Mitthi could only fantasize how good she would look in that sky blue jeans her sister bought the other day, only she has to resize her current trunk diameter from the alarming  36 to a decent 28 inch. Every time she goes out with her sister for shopping for clothes, her heart longs for buying those dresses that adorn the dummies. But this yearning of hers led her to a great loss once. It happened when she selected a pretty top with delicate ornate beaded designs all over it, saying her sister will try it in the trial room and see whether it suited her or not. While her sister was busy trying out other dresses herself in the nearest trial room, Mitthi went into another one and some how forced her head and arms through the top. It was mid-August. The trial room was literally suffocating for her and the blades of the small fan hanging from one of the walls could slice anything that came their way. And in this ‘chamber of concentration camp-lookalike’ .Mitthi was badly perspiring, the sweat running down her temples and like a mini stream flowing down her neck and into the poor top…(had the designer of the top been there to witness its agony, he would have sued this fat lady for being so rude in dealing with the near-masterpiece).Now with her head fitted neatly into the neck-hollow of the top, the arms stuck bizarrely halfway and the rest part of the top refusing to proceed downwards; Mitthi realized..she was in a dilemma. The price tag hanging by the the neck caught her attention. Until then, she loved the top so much that she didn’t even bother to take a glance of the price tag. Then as she twisted around her arm to get hold of the tag, she heard a ‘shriek’. She was certain it came from the small battered fan up on the wall which failed to cool down her drowning body. But then,the arm that was so long stranded halfway, began to slide amazingly smoothly through the top. The price tag displayed a four digit with a 4 in the thousand’s place. Another shriek and Mitthi could really garner her wits to understand that she was transfixed in a trench by then. With only 2 thousand rupees note asphyxiated in her pocket, she shouldn’t have committed the mistake of touching this top even.

The sound which she anticipated to be of the old fan, was actually produced when the neat stitch on the sides of the top could no longer tolerate the torture. Mitthi immediately opened the top, thanks to the poor thing which was definitely in shreds. That day, she was target to which darts of ridicule were being hurled. Sitting back in the dark room, she could not hold back the fountain of tears welling up in her eyes. She began cursing everything under the sun. She ate much lesser than her sister did, but she still weighed approximately three times her sister. She resisted the temptation of the junk food and even stayed away from the deep-fried samosas that her mom used to prepare occasionally. Resisting the ladoos was toughest for her, but despite that, she abstained from it. She cursed her genetic make-up as she thought that she had it in her genes to be fat…an alarming 86kg, with love handles emerging from her anterior abdominal wall muscles. Oh!how hard she had tried to lose those extra pounds…she uses up her pocket money in paying for the gym she had joined for the last 1 year..yet the fat globules kept on multiplying….maybe faster than any bacteria in a favorable culture. She wept…for hours…interspersed with acts of wetting the hanky and blowing her nose, which by now had developed a pink hue. Nostalgia began engulfing her. She was a thin child until 6^th grade, quite emaciated. It was after the summer vacations during her 7^th grade that she escalated the weight scale at a tremendous rate. By the end of that session, she became an object of mockery in her class. Senior boys, her batch mates and even her neighbors used to call her by the epithet ‘Moti’. She used to laugh away the comment then…it didn’t in the least disturb her initially. But when her friends refused to include her in their team for outdoor games, she could feel a stinging pain deep inside her heart. She would run fast, she tried to assure them. She tried to run as fast as her feet could in a relay race, but her heart began thumping wildly…a feeling of breathlessness crept in…and she lay flat…on the green grass itself….while the other athletes were already on  the end line of the race. Then her team mates neared her, blamed her for their team’s failure and none of them cared to help lift her up from the ground . Several minutes later, she was up on her feet again, thanks to her sister who came running from the other side of the field. People long for childhood days, rejoice every moment of it…but Mitthi dreaded even to bring alive her childhood memories. She often wondered how her size was increasingly becoming a source of sarcasm for her…more so after she had joined the college. Ultra-slim girls with heavy eye and face make-up made her blue with jealousy. But the feeling of despair was the one that predominated. So crazy she was about her aim to shed the extra kilos that she rarely gave second thoughts before following any suggestion that poured out relentlessly from her friends who have succeeded in maintaining skeleton-like figure…

So, now indulging in her crave to look slimmer, she ordered for the pills about which her friends had just told her. After coming from the morning walk, her plump milk white clear face appearing fresher and her skin shining under the influence of the early rays; panting and puffing, she sat down to relax. Her long soft tresses needed an oil massage. Finally after breakfast (which of course, was devoid of butter and ghee), she took a pill and experienced a rare satisfaction. A week passed. It was a Monday and for the first time, a compliment was showered on her. “Your face is flawless, how do you keep it away from all those dark spots and pimples propping up every now and then?”a severely malnourished-appearing classmate with visible mascara applied in multiple layers asked her. First a shy smile, then an inner jumping of spirits and then ravaging her blank mind for a logical answer-this was the sequence of activities that occurred in her being. What should she say? Until then, she never used to pay any attention to her skin…the only thing that used to bother her day in and day out was her weight. And now she herself was in a state of question mark, let alone giving any advice to her friend, who was now playfully rubbing her fingers against her chubby cheeks. “Gosh! Is it? You find it flawless?”-was all she could utter…but nobody ever said that she was slimming down.

“What do you expect? You take the pills for just a few days and wake up one fine morning with all your fats vanished! Have to be patient, dear. I have another 30 of them. Get them from me and this time, you can pay a thousand less as I got a few dozens of them free from the company”. Her friend replied when Mitthi called her up after exactly a month. Still hopeful about the pills showing its effect on her, she thought of buying another sets of those.  The next day, she saw red spots appearing all over her face. At a few places, they turned painful. A number of fallen hair lay lusterless on her pillow-cover. So shocked she was with her sudden change that she stood numb. Episodes of nausea followed and her headache was literally killing her. 2 times visit to the doctor’s clinic and a variety of liquid and solid medicines were prescribed. Mitthi’s mom was aghast at her daughter’s condition. She couldn’t eat well for days together .After a week, Mitthi recovered a little. When she was able to eat, her mom prepared all the dishes that she liked. And much to her surprise, she couldn’t resist herself  from savoring  all the  delicacies her mom took so much pain to prepare for her. The items were prepared in ghee, no doubt….but Mitthi felt like heaven when she tasted each morsel with rare delight. The dark circles around the eyes were still there and even the spots on her face were so stubborn that they refused to go. How she longed for her original skin…how she hoped of getting out of bed. The two weeks of illness has made her weak.

But those two weeks were perhaps the most beautiful ones for her. During those 2 weeks, never even once she thought of the fact that she was overweight. She didn’t refuse to eat the ghee laden khichdri(which she otherwise would never have eaten).She was not tensed that she missed her morning and evening walks and her visits to the gym.

She realized that in order to make herself look better in front of others, she w as so long sacrificing her own happiness, her own desires. Her weight was never a problem for her in the sense that it never hampered her working abilities or deteriorated her health. It was a problem when she cared about what others thought of it.

The doctor couldn’t lay his finger on the exact cause of Mitthi’s illness which appeared so suddenly. (How could he? Mitthi never mentioned about the slimming pills that she was taking until then)

After a month, Mitthi was once again hale and hearty. With her face blooming and cheerful(thanks to her mom’s special care regarding her food), she disposed off  the slimming pills in a nearby drain, hoping it will do the society a lot of good by killing all sorts of parasites thriving  in the filthy water.

“No, I no longer want more pills. I have lost 6 kilos in the past 2 weeks. Thanks to you,” Mitthi uttered over the phone. “That’s a miracle! wow! You  should continue with the pills. Don’t you wanna lose another 6 kilos?”came an exasperated voice from the other side.”Yes, have to admit that it’s a miracle, you know. Your slimming pills helped me to cut off 6 kilos of crazy stuffs from my stubborn mind. And now I feel much lighter, even lighter than your 45kg frame. Bye!”