My First blog!
I always was into writing diaries and organizing my thoughts. But at times I would limit myself worrying that someone might read my thoughts! Specially coming from Indian families where generations live together, the term ‘privacy’ is a dream! Now that I live alone and away from my family, I realize there is no fear about trying to hide my thoughts. Rather I want to write and post more to stay connected with my family and friends who are now countries away!
I have come to realize that being a millennial I want to post about almost everything. But not in the fear that if I don’t post, my life is not as happening as the millions of others who are out there on instagram showing off their strong game by being at a coffee shop that serves the most ‘instagrammable’ coffee or wearing the perfect outfit at a Coachella themed house party! I rather want to post more to stay connected with my life that I left back in India. I want to share photos of my food so that my sister in India can see that even in Canada, I find the meal that made both of us drool when we were together! The power of social media is unbelievable. As much as there is a negative side to be in this constant search of finding a perfect snap or story, social media connectivity also opens the world to bring awareness about taboo issues and opens a platform to have conversations between people of different lived experiences.
I want to write to tell stories that I capture through my lens. I also want to write and take photos to bring people’s mind to think about issues that are very close to me. My blogs are going to be an attempt to do this! What better way to get started then talking about body positivity!
I could rather have said ‘body shaming’ but I rather try to keep my tone affirmative as most books about living a positive life would tell me! Body positivity is the most lacked concept among the Indian communities. It does exist even within other communities but I have closely experienced it coming from India. The idea of loving your own body and accepting it the way it is, just doesn’t exist in the world that I grew up in.
My mother is not the regular skinny types and so is myself and my sister in this photo. I have also fought with myself trying to be this perfect types because that was more accepted. However, now when I have moved away, I have discovered this inner strength where I have made peace with my body. I go to the gym for myself and not because I want a body that some one who doesn’t matter to me, likes my shape. It has been a rough and challenging journey but at least now I feel I am headed in the right direction.
My sister always has been the opposite to me. She is the more calm one between the two of us. She on the other hand had this perfect ‘I don’t give a shit about what you think of my body’ attitude even as a kid. She, to me, is the perfect example of someone who could teach and preach body positivity. She has her days when the society that she is surrounded by brings her to question herself and her body type but then she is a fighter! She bounces back even hard! Its hard to know if this attitude of ‘I don’t give a shit about what you think of my body’ came naturally to her or she had to toughen herself up to survive and live this life that we all get to live once!
We need more of such powerful woman! For me, the year of 2019 is going to be about challenging anyone who body shames. I feel that when people body shame there is something burning within themselves which they want to get power on by commenting on other person’s body or rather get their own minds to shift from their own selves (which are also not the perfect skinny types) to someone else’s.
There is so much to be said about this topic and I could keep writing forever. But before I end this, I want to say that being a different size or not the so called ‘normal size’ comes with a stigma of not being beautiful. Therefore, when you are called ‘FAT’, your mind immediately starts seeing you as not being beautiful. It is as much true for someone who is constantly termed as being ‘so THIN’. I want to reverse this psychological effect that years of body shaming has brought specially within the Indian communities and this can only be done by talking more about it.
The next time you see yourself in the mirror and if you are not the ‘Regular body type’, just try to not associate it with not being beautiful. Every size, color, shape is beautiful. Keep this in mind and look around yourself. I am sure you will also see the beautiful world as I see. There is nothing as ‘perfect’ as if everything were perfect, it would be just so boring.
We need to learn to accept that nothing is perfect. Even winters or summers come with its own characteristic and us as humans have our own characteristics that make us ‘UNIQUE’ from each other. But that doesn’t mean summers are less beautiful than winters or I am less beautiful than you or someone who has the body that is more accepted in the society.
Let’s break this stereotype about being beautiful only if you are a particular size!
Love,
Dhara
(Not a size zero)