Dear fat, fatter, and fattest people,

I call you fat with such confidence cause till date I have not seen anyone thinner than me.

Hey you, and you, and all you fat people out there, I hope you are all “fat and fine”.  Well, I’d assume so only because you are so healthy and fit and cannot absolutely mind your business that you find immense pleasure in taunting me about my weight. This taunting that you do, I assume, is a fervent effort you make to feel good about yourself instead of trying to dig your nose with your healthy fingers. (Oh, wait! Do they even fit into your nose?)

Let me bore you with some tiny details about my childhood. When I had to give my entrance exam to get into Primary School in Grade I, we had to qualify and pass through three rounds of extensive testing. One; a knowledge based exam, two; a short interview, three; a medical exam. I prepared for the written exam for almost a year, but my mom was the most tensed for my medical exam. I was 15 kgs and looked like a bag of bones when stripped down to skin. My mother prayed really hard during my medical exam and told the examining doctors that I had just recovered from Typhoid and that’s how being 15 kgs at the age of six was justified.

15 years have passed since then and I have put on 35 kgs since that day, meaning I am now 50 kgs. My goal over the past four years has been to hit 65-70kgs but I have not succeeded so far. I have been mocked at, taunted, ridiculed, and questioned over and over again for being this.

As it is, I go through a lot of trauma when I go shopping. Being a boy, I hate to shop for clothes because I never find the right size or should I say, the small size. And when I do, the piece I like is gone. Even my favorite brand don’t have any clothes for me. In addition to that, you expect me to deal with you. Each time you call me thin, skinny, malnutrition-ed, weak, and ask me to put on some weight, I want to call you fat. I don’t want to yell, or making sly remarks at you, I just want to call you fat. This is because I know that it would hurt you and I want it to hit your mud filled brain that being called “thin” feels the same too. No, it is not okay to call me thin!

Let me begin by telling you that when your incompetent Computer Science addicted and Mathophilic brain was dozing during interesting Biology lessons, you missed the chapter on metabolism. If you had been awake then, you would have saved yourself from this embarrassment now and figured out that people who are very thin, often, have high metabolic rates and that it could possibly be the reason why they cannot put on any weight. And it would have given you the power of logic to recognize that the human body is an enormous, unfathomable, natural and scientific machine that structures each body’s response in a slightly different manner and that makes it extremely difficult to predict the way one responds or behaves. But, no! You won’t get it because you have only studied the Pythagoras Theorem that has been so monotonous over centuries, and worked with lifeless computer boxes that have one basic and banal design. Besides I also expect that you do not know about diseases like Marasmus which is why you call me “malnutrition-ed”. I demand you go and educate yourself, see lots of pictorial images before you use your boneless tongue to call me “a bag of bones”

You fat people, you come in so many different categories too. Some of you are just so fat and jealous that I’m so thin. That is why you throw questions at me like, “When was the last time you ate?” If you used that rusted brain of yours, you would know that everyone eats every day, atleast people like you and me. The ones who are less fat among the “fat group”, you think no end of yourselves. You are also somewhat proud of your figure and you think that you are thin and right. So when you see me, you are shocked that there is someone thinner than you out there, so do your best to kill my self-confidence and obviously, you fail. The rest of you have no other topic to discuss with me. When you see me after months, the first thing you say is, “You are still the same and sooooo thin, you haven’t put on any weight?” Yes, like the only work I have to do in this whole wide world is to try and put on weight by drinking gallons of coke and munching away hundreds of packets of potato chips just so that I can please your carcass-picking soul and have you tell me that I look fatter than the last time you saw me.

You also throw me at the back seat of the car, you make me sit on your lap in an auto rickshaw, carry me up to fix your fused bulbs, push me over the fence to fetch your shuttlecock, make me run up and down the stairs when you have forgotten your handbag in your house, widen your eyes until they look like an owl’s when I order a large drink, and snatch fries off my plate assuming that I will not be able to finish them. First of all, you have the audacity to do these things, and then you complain that my bones are “poking” you. I would love to say to you then that I love your body fat and that you feel like my pillow and that I’m grateful to you for that.

Also, when you have the cheek to mock at my weight, just keep in mind that I can do an eight mile hike in a few hours, leading and entertaining the group with my chatter and songs, while you need to take several protein drink breaks. And, when we go shopping together, and you laugh at me that all the clothes in Small size are gone, I pity you. I have to sympathize with you stunted brain that fails to show you the logic that all clothes in my size are gone and the ones in your size are left behind only because normal people are thin like me, and not many people are fat like you.

You, yes you married tongue-wagging Aunty! This letter is almost incomplete without a special mention of your crazy perception about people like me. As it is, I hate to see you and your attitude at weddings. Yes, those functions where you think you are the bride and wear a saree and gold that could be in par with your body fat, I’m talking about those. You have no shame and you know no respect. The bullshit you talk with my mother. You tell her, “Whaaaat!?! Aren’t you feeding your son? Are you eating all her food?” At that instance, I want to box your ears and ask you, “Aunty, it looks like you have spent all your money buying gold for this wedding, are you going to have money left to feed your fat kids or will they eat you when they are hungry?” Then, the other group of aunties, the ones who wonder how you are going to get married if you are so thin. You are so concerned and you behave like I am going to marry your daughter and pose for your family portrait. Oh, Please! Spare me the torture.

For your kind information, I am healthy. I fall sick less than once a year, and I have not even caught common cold more than five times in my entire lifetime. I don’t vomit when I smell cow dung, and I can do my own work without acting like a patient . So better act sane and treat me with respect and integrity and don’t you dare judge my capabilities based on my weight. And the next time you want to butt into my calm head with your nitwit comments about my weight, and laugh at me, you better think twice about it because I may be small but my mouth isn’t.

Sincerely,

Boy with size zero(being proud of it) J