Skip to main content

"Nobody deserves to suffer because of the way they look": Sudesna Ghosh

When I read Sudesna Ghosh's novella, Just Me, the Sink and the Pot, I was struck by how poignant the story was. Told from the perspective of an overweight young girl, Pamela, who struggles with negative body image issues, I wondered how much of her story came from the author's own experience. Sudesna shares her story of how Just Me... was born. Over to you, Sue!

"You're so pretty. Guys would love you if you'd lose some weight!" I've heard that line ever since my school days and believe me, the words hurt each time. So I grew up knowing I was pretty enough but too big to be loved or appreciated. If it wasn't kids my age, random aunties and uncles and strangers did the job of making me feel terrible about myself. Sometimes people excused their damaging words as 'concern' but that didn't help really. Fast forward to 2010, when I was at my heaviest body weight and hiding myself from people as much as I could, I decided to write Just me, the Sink & the Pot – that’s the title of my latest book.

As I wrote about Pamela's journey as a girl with negative body image, I relived my own school days. Yes, my book is fiction because a lot of it was written based on other overweight friends' experiences, but I can’t deny that a lot of it is me. In the book, my protagonist goes through issues that are characteristic of the Terrible Teens but it’s much worse because she is overweight and that takes over the way she thinks and perceives the world. To Pamela, it’s a world full of ‘normal’ sized people and her. From hoping with all her heart for that first kiss, to hopelessly watching the other girls talking to the boys in class, life sucks for Pamela. The book can get you teary at times.
Look at me. I’m 30+ and I thought I didn't deserve love or sex or romance of any kind for years. Why? Because of my body shape and weight. It took me this long to learn to love myself even though there are still days of doubt. I don't blame old classmates. They were young and probably picked up such behaviour and attitudes from older people around them and the media. And the uncles and aunts and strangers probably grew up being called ugly so they took it out on me. But till this day, I feel worse when women treat other women badly about the way they look.

I've hardly heard a conversation between two girls that didn't involve fat shaming another female. I've sat through movies with young girls criticising heroines for their butt size, their thigh width and their audacity to show cleavage past their 20s. I've also come across women and celebrities who claim to be against body shaming and size zero figures - but then they turn up in their skinny avatar all over again - not hiding their crazy diets from magazines and newspapers. I remember Parineeti Chopra getting a big award almost as soon as she lost a ton of weight. Closer home, I remember a neighbour finding a groom only after she lost 20 kilos and after she managed to live on boiled veggies and she made a habit of fainting.

So whom do I blame? Schools? The media? Bollywood? Our forefathers? More importantly, can we teach empathy? How many people know or care about the long term effects of negative body image? I'm not a Deepika Padukone, so even if I speak about this for ten hours straight, it won't be a big deal. But I hope to make it a big deal some day. Nobody deserves to suffer because of the way they look. Pamela in my story, is one of many girls who struggle to get the happiness that they deserve.

Sudesna Ghosh is an author based in Kolkata, India. Just me, the Sink & the Pot is her first fiction book. Her previous books are What Would I Tell Her @ 13 and News Now. When Sudesna isn’t writing, she is reading books or doing her bit for animal welfare.
Just Me, the Sink & the Pot is now available on Amazon sites worldwide









Labels:

Comments

  1. cristinajosaf12 April 2017 at 15:52

    They are heroins and they have to look beautiful it is their duty see and every girl want to look like Deepika Padukone Hot and beautiful.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class".  Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa
4 comments
Read more

'Pure Evil' has been my biggest and most complex project - Author Balaji Vittal

Love them or hate them, you simply can't ignore them. That cliche is perhaps most apt when it comes to the bad men of Bollywood. In fact, some of the most memorable lines of dialogue have been mouthed not by the heroes but by the villains of Hindi cinema. So it is only fitting that these shining stars of the dark world (after all, antagonists are the protagonists of their own stories!) deserve to be spotlighted. Balaji Vittal , the author of Pure Evil: the Bad Men of Bollywood undertakes this onerous task of highlighting the world of these evil characters and how they have come to occupy a special place in the hearts and minds of movie goers.  I spoke to Mr. Balaji Vittal, a National Award winning and MAMI Award winning author of Bollywood books, a columnist for News18, Outlook India, The New Indian Express , a Bollywood commentator and a public speaker, about his journey of venturing into the world of Pure Evil .   Here are some excerpts:   Your book "Pure Evil: the Bad Men
Post a Comment
Read more

Review of Vikram Vedha - The "Kahani" lets the film down

If there is one movie that is perhaps the Godfather of all dirty-cops-and-gangsters movies, it's gotta be The Departed by Martin Scorsese. Interestingly, it was an adaptation of the hit Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs . While the latter was itself a very popular film, it may not be wrong to say that The Departed has surpassed it by acquiring near cult status.   So, it was with this in mind I wanted to watch Vikram Vedha which is a remake of the Tamil film of the same name. The original film starring Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi was a huge blockbuster and it was no wonder that the filmmakers were keen to remake it in Hindi with Saif Khan and Hrithik Roshan in the roles of Vikram and Vedha. However, the Hindi remake failed to recreate the magic of the original. Even though the film is supposedly an exact copy, made by the very same filmmakers who directed the original.  While there has been a bunch of theories about why the Hindi version failed, the consensus has been that "
Post a Comment
Read more