Bend your Body! Don't crack your Mind!

I have always been, and still am, all for working relentlessly for a fab body (read, the best that your body can be), it pains me, however, to see how social media today is inundated with trends that promote harmful body stereotypes, from the ridiculous 'thigh gap' to the ‘bellybutton challenge'. The point of a challenge is to help you push your boundaries that much more so as to keep you motivated to do something that is in your best interest. These challenges seem to be doing the opposite. 

While on the one hand, people from different backgrounds and ethnicities are taking to the Internet to spread the message of accepting one’s body and loving oneself, it seems like all of those efforts are being rubbished, just by a couple of images that are setting the ‘trend’ for an ideal body.

The 'bellybutton challenge' made people twist their bodies, not for yoga, but to pose for the camera and show off their extremely thin waist-line. The 'thigh gap' is that apparently alluring feminine trait of having visible space between your inner thighs if you are standing with your feet together. These trends got their share of brunt too, but the magnitude of those who participated in such challenges is disturbingly large.

It’s becoming an obsession to have a particular kind of a body. Every month or so, magazines like Cosmopolitan come up with fad articles on topics related to that perfect female body, the lure of a man! You hear how a model got her ribs removed, as she wanted a slim waist. Younger women, especially the vulnerable groups like 'the teens' should be explained that these fads promote eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia, they should be periodically counseled by mothers and teachers to make them understand that genes also play an important role. Somewhere down the line, everything has a counter-effect.

Recently, the ‘ab crack’ has become the new fad. It is a vertical dent outlining the ab muscles which is a result of extreme workouts. The unhealthy aspect of body-sculpting fads such as this one is that they can, and do very often, stem from the need to "prove" oneself on social media rather than making it relevant to actually living your life in an optimum condition of mental and physical health.

Following celebrities doesn’t help either; Girls/ women get pressurized to alter themselves in order to look a certain way. Everyone has a different body type and it is impossible to achieve someone else’s body as your own. Trying to do that may lead to women taking extreme measures: modifying one's body to a level that it may end up hurting is just not worth it. I think this really goes back to self acceptance and being confident about yourself. So what if you don’t have an ab crack from working out? Contouring can do the trick instead! If following a fad becomes the norm,  people may get bullied and it may lead to depression and other complications. Also, extreme insecurities may force people into eating disorders,  these viral trends are only going to make matters worse.

Having said that, it must also be said, that hate it or love it, it is almost impossible to ignore the Social Media. Rather, we could and should strive for physical inclusion through this media, we must make people with all kinds of body types feel included in society. Women from across the country, in fact from across the globe, can come forward (and often do) on Social Media to talk about the effect of these trends and how we can counter them.

I would welcome such a discussion on this forum, right here, if you feel like adding your comments or having your say. Also, if you think that the awareness to steer clear of such negative trends needs to be spread, please feel free to share this piece.

Thank you!

The New India! Of wifeless MBAs, cows and cow-dung!

Some say we are lucky to be living in these times.

Opportunities for earning a good living and creating a 'good life' are in abundance and within reach of most; national boundaries are relaxing; time is steadily being saved by everything being delivered at your doorstep by online shops; the individual can breathe easy as society is not peeping through the keyhole as much as it used to; people are experiencing the euphoria of being always 'connected' via WhatsApp, not to forget the frenzy of attention from social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and so on in competition/ collaboration with dating apps such as Tinder & TM etc. Life couldn't get any better, especially for the generations in their 20s and the 30s. 

So far so good, but we need to halt right there. 

Some fundamental things still remain the same as in an earlier times, one of them being that youth is characterized by the hormonal havoc that we commonly call 'love'. Once you have taken care of the basic mundane material needs of life, you're somehow still missing that one thing that (you believe) is to be found by sharing your life with someone, not in the virtual world, but for 'real'. The media too is overly focused on this cocaine called love; it's everywhere: on TV, on FM radio, on the internet. You cannot turn a fraction of a degree without being assaulted by this notion that romantic love is 'must have thing' in your life. It is therefore but natural to turn your attention towards dating with the express intention of finding a partner, either for a short-term relationship or a long-term one culminating in marriage. So starts the dating ritual of getting introduced to someone either online or offline.

This is what was the crux of a conversation I recently had with a young acquaintance of mine, a 38 year old MBA, doing well in his Marketing career and still deluded by love. Let's call him 'Karthik', to give his incognito face a name in this piece. Although I was with him to discuss a business deal, I noticed that Karthik was very frequently referring to how he was "happy being single". I figured he just needed that little nudge to tell me what it was that he was facing in his near-obvious search for finding a partner. He opened up soon enough to reveal how he had been "unlucky" in love, how all his classmates, batch mates at the various institutions he had attended were almost all married and settled in life. Of course, he added the disclaimer that many of them were also separated/ divorced, and that in each of these cases he had already foreseen it as 'inevitable'.

 This intrigued me and I wanted to know what the 'inevitability factor' was. In his opinion, it has become increasingly difficult for men especially in his social milieu to find a woman to marry and possibly even more difficult to stay married. 
-"But why?", I asked. 
-"Because...", he said, "just like us (guys), girls are also getting educated and their focus, motivation, priorities are all rapidly changing. They want a career and money much more than wanting to find a guy to love and to marry."

As a career-focused woman myself, I couldn't help but agree. However, I tried telling him that all was not lost, surely at some stage even the financially independent woman would want to set up a love-nest. He seemed to disagree and in the next hour or so painted this picture of a "monster"-woman who thinks no end of herself just because she is earning a few bucks.
-"What exactly do you mean?" I asked, bemused. 
-"You see...", he continued, "She would come and go as she would please, wouldn't want to take any responsibility of cooking and running the house, much less of kids. etc". 
-"Well, in that case, you could be the one taking on these roles perhaps?" I suggested

-"Yes, of course", he quipped, "I am an independent man, so much so, that even if there is complete darkness in my room and I walk in...", (I gulped) "I would know exactly where to find my shirt, and inner wear and socks", (sigh of relief from me). "But why should I do all this for her?" he added. He continued, -"Moreover, if she is a working woman, earning her own money, she would obviously want to spend some on her parents. And if my money is being used for our joint expenses, why would I not have the privilege of calling the shots, you tell me...".  

I was aghast at this stage and decided in my mind that I was face to face with an MCP, who was an exception and that all guys were not like him. He however, was on a trip, and was unstoppable:
-"I also wouldn't like it if she were independent while gong to work, but suddenly became dependent on me to drive her to the beauty salon over the weekend."

I lost the will to argue or even to continue this conversation. My mind was dwelling on whether this was the kind of guy my daughter would end up meeting. Somehow managing to camouflage my ire, I suggested why not he go for a girl who hadn't opted for higher education and career and whose mind was relatively "un-corrupted" by all these ideas of Women's Lib, and who would be there for him waiting with a hot meal when he got home after saving the world with his marketing 'gyan'. He said he had not only given it a thought but had also gone "to see" a few such girls in and around his village in Uttar Pradesh as arranged by his mother. Some of them even had a dowry "ready", befitting his stature as the son of a UP bureaucrat and an MBA from XIMB to boot! 

By this time, my anger had subsided to be replaced by a laughter that was so hearty and deep that my stomach was hurting.
-"So then, what happened to the deal?" I barely managed to hide my sarcasm.
-"No yaar, not possible", he continued, dejected, "I can't marry such a girl".
-"And why not?" My curiosity got the better of me.
-"Because she wouldn't be presentable at office parties, she wouldn't be able to speak fluently (in English) on any topic. Her parents also know that. That's why they have kept the dowry ready for a city-based guy like me"
-"So then, an educated but not so ambitious girl is who you are looking for, am I right?" I asked, trying hard to appear genuinely interested.
-He gave it some thought, and then continued, "Maybe... but she wouldn't like my family in the village. We have cows at home, and sometimes there is a stench of cow-dung." 

I could no longer hold it in. I guffawed in my full-throttled laughter and even Karthik's indignant face could not deter me. 

Needless to say, the story of Karthik's epic search for a girl to marry remained inconclusive. But it does point towards a gap in demand and supply (pardon me for using the terminology, for want of a more apt expression, in the context of human beings) of marriageable girls in India. 

Let us avoid the pitfall of being facile and attributing this very simplistically to the modern Indian male's inability to handle the modern Indian emancipated female. It runs much deeper than that. If we have been paying any attention to census and other reports we would see where the hapless fate of guys like Karthik stems from. There are NO GIRLS TO MARRY. Our previous generations have done too good a job of killing them! So much so that there are supposedly 43 million more men in India than women*, accounting for a whopping 76% of the total male surplus in the world. Even if some eligible Indian men were to find foreign girls to marry, many would still remain wifeless since, as rightly pointed out by Karthik, many of the eligible Indian young ladies would "... want a career and money much more than wanting to find a guy to love and to marry." 

Coming back full circle, maybe all is not perfect in modern India. We are living through times that are a strange combination of equal opportunities but also of gaping chasms left behind by mindless ravages by an unthinking/ selfish generation - that of our parents and grand-parents.


Yes, I know. It is sacrilege to say such things out loud about our revered elders. But, face it, you too need someone like me to say it as it is. That's why the Karthiks among you choose my shoulder to cry on.

*Reference: WORLD SEX MAP by David BAUER