This is a post I should’ve posted ages back, but well I didn’t, out of fear that my close friends would call me a hypocrite. And now I thought I should. So here it is!
It was a fine Saturday morning. I wake up to the birds chirping, sun shining, coffee brewing, a nice smell ensuing, etc etc etc and I pick up the paper. As always, I throw away the main Hindu paper and spread the Weekend section in front of me to catch up on the latest Bollywood/Hollywood gossip. Lo and behold! The main story there is ‘Kareena Kapoor has attained size zero (taaliyan taaliyan!!). Personally I thought she looked horribly anorexic in the pic (apologies to all Kareena Kapoor fans but anorexic is a polite term I’ve used. The precise reaction that my brother gave after seeing the pic, if I remember right, was eeeugh!!) And of course, there was an entire write up dedicated to lolo’s or bebo’s or bimbo’s, or whatever that is she is called, feat. Bravo. Very nice.
And then, sometime later I was watching TV and I came across a very interesting report in one of the leading news channels (darn it, I don’t remember which one it was, would’ve loved to shred the channel’s name and reputation into tiny shreds of parched meat like pieces :P ) . Yeah so well they were excitedly talking about a movie to be released, Tashan (if they had known what an outrageous flop the movie was to be, I’m sure they wouldn’t have wasted so much time on it… or perhaps, going by the present state of news channels, they still would’ve!). And what were the two most important things they were discussing about the movie? 1. Kareena Kapoor’s new vital statistics. 2. Kareena Kapoor- Saif Ali Khan relationship. Wow! I would love to comment on point #2 but that would be digressing from the topic, so we’ll come back to oh-so-thin Kareena’s new size. The protagonist was gushing and blushing and basking in the glory of numerous compliments that were being bestowed on her by the pathetic host, fans, viewers and some ‘inside’ Bollywood people who had (surprise surprise!) to comment on something as dumba-dumb-dumb as this. And all this while, she looked like she was going to drop dead the next minute.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Kareena Kapoor. My fury is directed against all those people who are promoters of the size zero bandwagon. Pick up any issue of any woman’s magazine, and I assure you there will be at least one article on how to look sexy/glamorous/thin. Not fit, thin. Yes, I plead guilty; I’m one of those numerous people who are affected by the get-thin-to-look-good propaganda. No I am not thin. I know I’m not fat as per the norms of fat (as my friends have tried to tell me in vain) but in a world crazed by the size zero phenomenon, I’m obese :| and that fact has not been a very comforting one. I may have been a good student at school, a good friend, a kind person, and have had numerous virtues but in a world obsessed with getting thin and looking fab, I was a loser. And trust me; I’m not alone in thinking so. I have known girls who were way worse than I was and who took this very seriously- slimming pills, crash dieting and going to gym till your body cannot take the stress any longer- all this is not new to any one. Most of them are very pretty girls, but God decided to let them have some meat on their bones, (oh no!). Seriously, so what’s the big hullabaloo about?
Media, as always the culprit, and fashion shows have tampered with the definition of good looking so badly that it is no longer what it used to be. Good looking implies being in shape. And if that shape happens to be anything other than an hourglass shape- oops... you’re out! Staying fit, which doesn’t imply getting rid of all that is fleshy from your body, is a forgotten concept. Yes, I agree one has to look good when in show biz, but why the brouhaha about the size? I mean, I had never thought Kareena Kapoor was fat in the past, if anything, she looked better then! The heroines of yesteryears weren’t size zero, and well they looked far better than our present day heroines. So what’s my point? That the obsession with the whole size zero thing must stop. Not everyone is born a model, hell that’s why they are models! So Kareena Kapoor slimmed down- why the fuss? It’s not like she invented a machine that will blow up all terrorist camps with one click of a mouse (now THAT would be worthy of some fuss). If the present day media (and youth) stopped giving so much attention to looks and focussed more on basic intelligence, fitness, general awareness and overall development, we’d probably have a more informed generation next (that knows that our president is not Sonia Gandhi and that Bihar is not the capital of Uttar Pradesh and that Madras is not another name for South India, which is again, not a state), which is by all means a better thing than to have a circus of stick thin, weak anorexic women (and men too, wanting to look muscled up and beefy).
On that note, I’m going to have a cheese pizza and a chocolate ice cream.
(and to all those people who accuse Vidya Balan of being fat, screw you!)
Pic courtesy : bestpicsaround,
