Why are women their own worst enemies?

Seriously, why are we our own worst enemies?

What is it with women not being able to stand another's happiness and gloating in the latter's tragedy?

Your "best friend" put on some weight? Aaha, time to celebrate with some wine, eh? After all, wine isn't one known to add to the pounds!

I have always had a battle with the bulge. Partly, it is the genes, partly, it is me. Okay, fine, a large part is me!

Even as a child, I was known to be the fattest one amongst all the cousins, and the Bengali ones smugly blamed the Sindhi side of me. Whatever made them happy!

Ditto, as a teenager, and then a working professional in my early twenties. It wasn't until I got married and moved cities, and actually, finally started eating right, that the weight began to drop. but then I got pregnant! HA!

Any how...

Why do we women make such derogatory, frivolous comments about our friends and acquaintances when they pile on the pounds?

This habit takes on epic proportions once we give birth. Giving birth is a blessing, and only we women can enjoy this, and I don't mean this in a sexist way.

It's just how nature meant it to be, and there's nothing we can do about it. Our bodies carry another person for 3 months short of a year, so is it not acceptable that there will be extra kilos, even after the exit of this little person?

Post partum fat isn't easy to get rid of. Some have it very lucky, Others, like yours truly, continue with the battle.

For some, breast feeding helps knock off the kilos, for others, it doesn't. A lot of women, in fact, tend to add on whilst breast feeding.

Does my weight bother you? I wouldn't think so!

Does it bother you that I eat like a pig? Or that I look like one?

If it does, then I have a simple solution for you: DON'T BOTHER BEING FRIENDS WITH ME! IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

Nobody needs judgemental people in their lives, least of all a new mom, who has her own emotional baggage to deal with. Her post partum weight gain is nobody's concern, except maybe her doctor.

Here, I recall such some very beautiful comments I have received ever since I gave birth to little P.

For the sake of not wanting to hurt anybody, I will try and refrain from being too specific, even though, I was horribly hurt when these comments were thrown at me.

Acquaintance 1: It doesn't look like you've lost weight! I wouldn't know, if you hadn't told me!

Then, touching my breasts... YES, she actually did that... it's these boobs, I tell you. They are
too big!

Err, okay, thank you, "FRIEND", for touching me inappropriately and then calling me fat in a nice way.

Acquaintance 2 (In a text message): Hey, fatso! what's up? How's are fat mommsy and baby doing?

Umm, not much. Just thinking of how to appropriately get back at you without being a complete B**CH and ruining our "friendship".

Somebody from the In-laws: Oh wow! She's become SO FAT! WOW, I MEAN SO FAT!

Hey, thanks, you really really mean and nasty person with no feelings whatsoever! May you drown and die in coconut chutney!!!

Somebody from MY SIDE!: How come you've put on so much weight?! Is something wrong?!

Yes, something is indeed "wrong"! I just gave birth! To a baby. not a bag of chips, you moron!

Somebody from the extended family: Why did you allow yourself to be SO FAT?! Oh, c'mon! Don't blame the breastfeeding and cesarean!

Hey, aunty! Isn't your own daughter like really really fat?! I mean sooper, dooper, really really sooper dooper fat?! For, like a century, even though she didn't breastfeed?

Fat aunty in the neighborhood: OH MY GOD! In real aunty-who-watches-too-many-TV serials-style: you've become so fat!!!

Yes, aunty! It's a shame that even though you've been walking in this very park for a zillion years, you seemed to have not shed a single gram. DITTO, YOUR VERY OWN DAUGHTER!

Friend: Oh, don't worry. I was also fat after the baby. I mean, I wasn't THIS FAT! NONO! I was 60 kgs, you know! OMG!

Me: Do I know you, you nasty woman with great genes?!

Honey, I shrunk your underwear!

The moment arrived, the big one we had all been waiting for!

Little P was fast asleep and big P was waiting for me to get dressed, while a cab and FIL waited for all of us to pick up our bums and move.

I was quite smug about the fact that now that I had finally given birth, the weight was just going to drop off like the price of mangoes in monsoon, and whoom and boom! I would magically fit into my old clothes now that there would be no bump.

I picked up the lingerie and IT WOULDN'T FIT!!!

It was as if it was 3 sizes too small! WHAT THE FISH?! Not the absolutely unsexy bra, nor the horrendous granny pants! $%^*())&^#@@

The cabbie was honking, the FIL was muttering something in Tamil and the husband was being patient, maybe because he didn't want to mess with the fresh dose of post partum hormones I had warned him about!

I had no idea what to do. I was angry, I was close to tears. I had ordered a maternity/feeding bra somewhere in my last trimester and I was, honestly speaking, very embarrassed when I was placing the order online.

The whole online world and everybody at the lingerie e-store would know my Pamela Anderson bra size! But, I had no choice. I was in desperate need of new (read bigger) ones!

How was I to know that even the biggest size of my life would now suddenly be 3 sizes too small?!

And the sooper dooper big granny pants, the stuff that sexual nightmares are made of, those had shrunk too!

They HAD SHRUNK! Because, I possibly couldn't have become bigger now that the baby was on the outside!

As the honks and muttering grew, I had no option, but to stuff "myself" into the top. At one point, I thought I would suffocate to death, I was that tight!

The underwear?! Gaaah! That's another story!

When you live in a joint family, the older and elder members of the family know a thing or two about what in India is known as "jugaad". That is, an ad-hoc and impromptu solution, that borders on the ridiculous at times!

So, to cut a long story short, I basically just ripped the elastic off the granny chuds as much as I could, and, VOILA!!! There it was, a bigger version of the stupidly disappointing granny pants!

Aaah, those thunder thighs had some new friends, a la old-wine-in-new-bottle kind of friends!

Of egg wraps and a 100 kgs of adipose tissue

The strange thing about pregnancy is that the status of your mood is forever changing. One minute, you are "feeling excited", the next, you have feelings of murdering someone ;)

My strange relationship with eggs was to come full circle towards the end of the pregnancy, much to my shock. What started out as " Get those damn eggs out of this house!" would soon turn into "if you don't get me an egg frankie RIGHT NOW, I am going to burn this damn house!"

So hot was this sudden love affair with eggs that one night, whilst asleep, I found myself salivating as an army of egg rolls and frankies were swimming in front of my eyes as I lay there dreaming!!! :o

Luckily for me, I had a doctor's appointment the very next day, which was actually, for me and my food cravings, just an excuse to go out and eat and blame it all on the pregnancy. teehee ;)

So, off we went to the doctor, all that while, me, lost in a world of egg and cheese wraps and rolls and what not. I couldn't wait for the doctor to finish her check up and picked up my fat arse and rushed at the speed of a snail to the nearest mall, where dear friend Google had pointed out that there indeed was a egg wrap kiosk! EGGS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! For here comes the woman who shall chompchomp and swallow all you yellow folks!

I ate one, and the husband was quick enough to notice that I was lusting after another one. This was embarrasing. My appetite was now officially bigger than his and he knew it! Shudder!

He kept asking, "do you want one more?"

Ermmm, ummm, no no, are you mad? What am I, a whale? To eat TWO WHOLE egg wraps?! Of course not!

Inside, the bump was kicking the crap out of me, it had gotten so excited by the yummylicious taste of melted cheese and egg. THE BUMP wanted more, NOT ME!

ME: Okay, I *think* I will have another one. But, I AM NOT going there to order myself. What is the server going to think of me, this woman who can gobble two whole wraps by herself?!

So, I pretended to not know the husband, while he stood there ordering another wrap for me. Me, the sly and suave food monster that I had become, stood in one corner texting him to MAKE IT A DOUBLE EGG WITH CHEESE!!!

100 kgs, here I come, with eggs coming out of my arse!

Meanwhile, my pregnancy was coming to an end, with labour barely a week away. Soon, I wouldn't be able to blame my insatiable appetite on the bump! SIGH!

My name is mommy and I AM FAT!

My name is mommy and I AM FAT!

There it is, an admission in writing of my fat-ness, set in writing for posterity sake and for all to see and read and LOL over.

I am a new mom...well, not SO new now, considering that  I gave birth more than a year ago. And just like ALL, okay, not ALL, but some, new moms, I have a lot of issues to deal with. I am putting this in writing because I feel judged for airing the honest fact that mommyhood is tough and I feel that somewhere out there is another new mom who is struggling with post partum emotions just like yours truly here and would feel great to know that is is common and it is OKAY to feel this way.

In the current scheme of things, it's been a tough couple of days and nights. I am a nursing aka breastfeeding mommy, which means I am the primary source of food and comfort for my bub, especially in the middle of the night, when only the owls and I are awake.

It's tough surviving on broken sleep for a few days. Now change that into a year of broken sleeps and voila! there I am! I love being a mom, I love my boy to the moon and back, I love being a child when I am with him. In fact, I can't even recall what life was before he came in, all pink and gooey and screaming his lungs off.

The sleeplessness and the deposits of fat certainly DO NOT take away from this burst of emotions that I feel for bub. But, I feel sad looking at myself in the mirror. Worse, I feel guilty for feeling this way because it implies that I am not enjoying motherhood. Or does it?