This woman in a tight grey tshirt and jeans asks: How do u stay so thin? And I wriggle out, I think, but not really, with: I eat. No, seriously, she says. And I look past her spectacles and see the determined look that shows she doesn't believe me, that she wants to know how I stop myself from eating, that she thinks she eats more than me. Me, the glutton. Who ate a quarter of the chocolate cake that everyone else avoided, two green(mint) murukkus and fried potato shreds for breakfast and banana chips for tea, three quarters of the bottle.
Genes? Jeans? I am wearing a tailored forgiving sunny salwar kameez. She is wearing a tight grey tshirt. She has bigger boobs: what I wouldnt give for a handful more. And a bigger paunch, if possible. Mine is large enough, even if it doesnt show in my carefully flowing kameez. She has a larger surface area, definitely. And she is wearing JEANS. I do too. But even at 47kg, I do not wear tight grey tshirts; at her circa 65kg, I'd wear a kaftan or a pretty poncho. I am proud to have issues of forearm underhang and bra seepage. Without those, I would be a pariah during bodygossip sessions.