Time to stop body shaming, says Miss India Canada

Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 31

“Most of the time, I flip when I hear words like ‘dark skin’, ‘oh-you-are-so-fat’, ‘postpartum body’, ‘body after baby’, or anything remotely referring to a ‘perfect body’ or ‘fair skin’. Not because I hold any grudge with any woman who is ‘fair’ or ‘slim’, but because I refuse to encourage any sort of societal pressure on women to look a certain way.”

These pearls of wisdom were doled out by Miss India Canada Manasvi Noel, who was in the city to visit the Aruna Asif Ali Memorial Trust, here today.

Sharing the sordid tale of her struggle against body shaming, the lanky beauty says, “Before I became Miss India Canada, I was a bit on the heavier side and used to get rude comments from people.”

“Despite being ‘big’ and ‘dark’ from the ‘accepted’ social standards, I never let people’s comments or ideas bother me. Because it’s my life and my body and I’m happy with the way I look and feel,” said the trained belly dancer who was born in Dubai and brought up in Canada. 

She, however, takes every episode as a stepping stone. “If it wasn’t for all the obstacles and pushing through, I would never have made it this far,” she says laughing hard. 

Taking a very serious note of the societal view on women’s status, Manasvi even took to teaching belly dance to women between 16 and 65 years. “I hold special dance classes and workshops for pre-and post-natal women because motherhood is the most beautiful journey a woman can experience in her life,” said the doe-eyed beauty, adding that her main aim was to make these women feel confident, beautiful and self-loving!