Navigating Fatness: Generational Trauma and Decolonising My Body as an Indian Woman

By Carlin Philip

By the time I turned eight, I had started sucking in. 

This wasn’t an entirely conscious act. At eight, I did not understand what sucking in meant; all I knew was that you had to do it if your stomach spilled. The way your stomach spilled mattered too. If your stomach spilled towards your sides, enough to give you an hourglass shape, then you did not have to bother. You could tie your saris under skirt low enough to have it show your hips, the way a curtain lets enough sunlight through. Enough to not burn your eyes.

Fatness as something of aesthetic value is something about which there are varying opinions in India. Oddly enough, India used to be (relatively) accepting of fat bodies. In movies, you would see women with bulging stomachs dancing with male leads, having their stubby fingers linger on their stomachs for a while longer before they spin and spin, displaying their beauty to you, the viewer. You, as the viewer, didn’t think this was special. You had met women with bodies like this. Your mother had it. The aunty next door had it. The teacher that everyone crushed on in school had it. 

This isn’t quite the case as of late. I am 21 now. When I was young, the women I saw in films possessed bodies that weren’t familiar. Their stomachs were flat. I grew up listening to the women in my family wail about their fatness, this cursed excess on their bodies. I grew up listening to their pleas, to them wishing it away. I grew up hearing the constant vibrations of the latest belt that would magically make all this fat disappear. It was guaranteed that once the fat disappeared, you would emerge as a woman worthy of attention – of ‘good’ attention. The kind of attention that appreciated your aesthetic value. When you are fat, the attention that you get is directed towards your bulging excesses. The twist of smiles on the viewer’s face as they direct their gaze to your breasts, your stomach, your thighs almost feels deserved. 

So, by the time I turned eight, I started sucking in.

I believe that as women of colour, we often start hating our bodies from when we’re in the womb. Clothed in blood and struggling around, kicking the walls of a woman that struggled with her own body, we would be pushed out to be victims of a world that would never truly be ours. As women of colour, this world is designed to work for the whim of white women. The kind of pigmentation and the way our stretch marks glitter on our bodies is wished away by the capitalistic gaze. 

By age ten, many Indian girls have woken up to find their mothers looming over them, holding tubs of turmeric and curd, wishing this darkness would flee from their bodies. You find that you learn stories from your mother of how hard she struggled to lose the weight she gained after birthing you, and you avoid her look. You’re unsure of whether it is your fault. You want to tell your mother that she’s beautiful – that she is enough the way that she is. The way her flesh spills is nice; it feels warm when you hug her. You want to tell her that tying her underskirt so tight that it leaves a ring of redness isn’t worth it. 

But then you find yourself doing this. You find yourself learning to hate your body the same way your mother did. The same way your aunts did. You find yourself learning to balance your weight enough; you learn how to send the quickest prayer to make sure that whatever you sit on doesn’t crumble. You learn to limit your eating two days before a date. You learn that as long as your fatness doesn’t creep up to your face, it’s okay.

Toxic behaviours towards your body are encouraged in Indian society, and it’s clearly a colonial leftover. Because the idols of goddesses have bulging stomachs. Their breasts hang as they stare defiantly back at you. Their thighs look heavy as they sit, legs widespread in a position that plus-sized women are often discouraged from doing. 

We grow up and into and through the pain that our dark-skinned ancestors whispered into the ears of our young mothers. You need to suck in your fat. Between birth and death, our mothers are convinced that our existence as women is shaped to fit with men. In this heteronormative puzzle, our mothers weave their quilt of measures to model us into the ideal woman. The ideal woman has a flat stomach. Her stretch marks do not exist. She is dark but not too dark. 

Somewhere along the lines, you unlearn this or find yourself in the process of unlearning this. You learn to ignore the taunts women give you. You learn to not encourage a discourse that preys on women’s bodies. 

As a fat woman, you find yourself picking up movies with fat women in them. But then your initially wide smile retracts as you see the same fat woman losing her weight to get the man of her dreams. You find yourself being robbed of air as you see the fat woman fitting into clothes she never could before, bursting into tears as her friends clap for her. You see your mother, your best friend, your aunt, your grandmother in this woman. You are tired. You tell your mother to stop sending you detox recipes that are really just laxatives. You find yourself buying clothes that accentuate your excesses.

You decide to stop sucking in. The excesses exist, and they are beautiful.