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The Audacity to Gain Weight

As a night shift worker often at her desk, I put on some weight over the span of a year. Also, I found my lipids were a little above the ideal, which isn't a good sign for a 26 year old. The comments from members of my family were akin to verbal butchery. My weight was discussed in family dinners and advice on how I could drop it. At any social event, I was surrounded by continuous reminders of my weight, how I look "healthy" in the desi sense. How I used to be so thin.  "You were so pretty and thin."  "Your face looks so swollen"  "Girls look prettier when they are thin"  Now that I am married, the comments were further supplemented: "Lose the weight, otherwise you will swell up when you get pregnant" "Phool jao gi". Female members of my family take the further responsibility of holding my belly or other parts to emphasize the degradation of my figure.  Ironically I worked in an office for Obesity and Diabetes. Coming acr...

Caffeine and Depression

 As a person who had depression in the past, I often dealt with the following thoughts/symptoms   1. Questioning why I had to complete day to day tasks  2. Questioning the purpose of life - What was I supposed to do with life  3. Wondering why I had not achieved much in life - will I ever really become something  4. Loss of interest in my hobbies, which included research, reading literature, running  5. A deep sense of discontent- I had not done much with my life  6. Disturbed sleep - because i feel I hadnt done enough in the day Nothing inherently was wrong with my life. I was in university, studying, making some income. My matters back at home were a bit disturbing, but it wasn't something I couldn't deal with.  I often grappled with the idea that I had not achieved much in life, that I was settling with mediocrity. I often found myself questioning why I should do anything. Even questioning why I should get out of bed in the morning. The la...

Ink

Its evening. kajal stains her fingers, bent in some places due to prolonged writing- a slight deformity. her nails have grown uncomfortably long- she resists the urge to chew at them. veins pop out, snaking their way along her hand, and its partly tanned skin. her newly bought pen- barely a week old and refuses to lay a stream of ink on the paper she wrote on. she is upset, but not for long. she fishes out her pouch, she sew it with her own hands- and it is a rugged piece of art- if one can see it that way. her index finger and thumb now entrap a new pen, and she continues- ignoring the growing pain in her wrist, and neck, or the screaming from downstairs, of people arguing with one another, and one calling her name.  she is not bothered.  ~An excerpt.