Sunday, November 12, 2000		Life Ties

STUTI was the cutest kid I had ever seen. She was a chubby child with rosy cheeks and a winsome smile. Exotic curls framed her face. Her chirpy voice matched her sparkling eyes. There was no one in the neighbourhood who was not under her hypnotic spell. If she summoned an uncle from across the road, he would sure enough drop everything and rush to do her bidding. The bhaiyas and didis would bribe her with chocolates before popping the question, "Stuti, how much do you love me?"

She was clearly the Queen Bee who could snap her tiny fingers and command an audience. She learnt her first lesson early in life — arresting physical looks gave you a definite edge over others. Added to that was the fact that she was born into a genetically good-looking family. The family often talked of clothes, waistlines, complexion and beauty-enhancing treatments. This provided the backdrop to the fascinating tales that kept doing the rounds. The snatches of conversation that she grew-up hearing had an impact on her. She was eight years old when she heard about her aunt Sharda who had put on an ‘obscene amount of weight’ after marriage and babies. Her mother and mausi kept discussing how her ungainly physical form had pushed her debonair husband into the arms of another woman who was, needless to say, very shapely. They said it was all Sharda’s fault for letting herself go and not shedding her excess weight. Then there was the family’s ostracised spinster who couldn’t find a match because she was obese and dark.

Stuti grew up into a cute-looking teenager. There was still some amount of baby fat on her body which complemented the innocence on her face. There were times she wished she was as tall as her leggy sisters who often joked about her being the odd one out in a family of tall persons. She didn’t mind the light banter till she was singled out in class to play the role a fat and ugly step-sister in a musical. This came as a severe blow to her self-image. She was now convinced that her looks were all wrong and that no one really wanted to befriend her.

In the two years that followed, Stuti became obsessed with being slim. People who had seen her grow up couldn’t reconcile her childhood images with the young adult they saw. Her skin had turned sallow, her hair were thinning and, although she had well-chiselled facial features, she looked lifeless. The spontaneous fun-loving child grew into a brooding, irritable sickly youngster.

I was paying a courtesy call on her mother who was recovering from a surgery and happened to walk past Stuti’s bedroom when I heard choking sounds. I found her bent over the sink, poking a finger into her mouth in order to throw up. She was taken aback when she saw me and for a moment had a stricken look on her face. She mumbled something about going to college but succumbed easily to my gentle request of taking the day off and relaxing. I got the feeling that she wanted me to stay and so I struck a conversation with her. Before long, she was crying her heart out. It was as if a dam had burst.

By the end of the hour, I realised she needed urgent medical attention for she was suffering from acute bulimia, the anorexia nervosa. Strangely, her family had failed to notice that their daughter was suffering from a psychological disorder where the victim is obsessed with body weight. The fear of becoming fat overshadowed all aspects of her life. From being amongst the first 10 in her class, she had become a tailender. She no longer had a wide group of friends. The telephone had long since stopped ringing for her. She spent a lot of time locked in her bedroom playing computer games and staring at the ceiling. In spite of having won the junior state chess championship, she had lost interest in the game.

She had, I realised, developed a distorted view of her body. The normal curves were abhorred and perceived as ugly and undesirable fat. For the last two years, she had been plagued by worries and anxieties about her physical attributes. When the boy she had a crush on chose to date her best friend, it was the last straw for her. Her friend was slimmer, trendier and a clone of the gorgeous MTV Veejay, Malaika. Stuti knew that at five feet three inches with short legs and ‘cute’ looks, she stood no chance of ever having a boy friend.

She was determined to rid herself of her chubbiness. While outwardly she gave the impression being a normal teenager, she felt rotten deep down. Since she felt powerless and had no control over her life, she felt even more inadequate. When she tried dieting for a week and found people paying her compliments, she was convinced that losing weight was the only solution to her problems.

She began to think of food all the time. She studied weight charts and kept a strict watch on her calorie intake. Whenever she went on a food binge, she was plagued by guilt. The moment she came home she would throw up the food and be quits with herself. This became a pattern. She read somewhere that laxatives helped so she started a daily intake. When a friend told her that smoking helped in control -ling one’s appetite, she started smoking on the sly. She managed to shed off a few kilos but she was so preoccupied with keeping her weight under control that she forgot what it was to be normal and carefree.

She was aware of the change in her lifestyle. There were times when she wanted to run away, give up all attempts of trying to remain slim ‘n’ trim and revert back to her laughing, joking, fun-loving self. But the fear of putting on those kilos again and being the butt of her friends’ jokes and barbs was too much to bear.

When I met her, she was suffering from acute psychological effects of prolonged starvation. She was caught in a cyclical pattern of starving and binging. Starvation had led to low sugar levels. Her depression, feeling of low self-esteem and guilt led her to imagine that everyone was plotting against her. Her erratic food intake led to carbohydrate carving, food binges and impaired coping mechanism. When she was taken to the doctors she was suffering from anaemia, irregular menstrual cycle, constipation, frequent fainting spells and fatigue. They were alarmed at how her condition had not been diagnosed earlier and had the situation been allowed to continue it could have led to anything from suicide to substance abuse to death.

The family, jolted out of its slumber, swung into action. They were aghast that their angel had fallen prey to this ailment which, on the surface, seemed so harmless but left such ghastly emotional and physical scars. They knew that an uphill task awaited them. They had to restore Stuti’s confidence in herself. How had they lost touch with her? To think that she was under such so much stress and they had not an inkling about it was something they could not come to terms with. But now with a strong support system in place, they were sure they would succeed in making her love herself again — irrespective of what the weighing scale said.