Mosquito Bites

‘Mosquito Bites’ - what an odd title for an article must be your thought! These ‘Mosquito Bites’ defined me for a long time and today I am going to unravel the truth of how we women have been accepting many snide, body-shaming remarks made by the people in our society. I will share with you a story from my own life of how I became a victim of this cruel comment made by a so-called ‘well-wisher’.
As a child, I was quite thin and as I reached my adolescence, I continued to be skin and bones. A girl’s assets, once she attains puberty, naturally begin to develop but in my case, neither did my breasts fully develop, nor did my body fill out. Everyone in my family thought it was my metabolism due to which I had a thin body and that I’d eventually fill out when the time was right. Although I had these reassurances from all the Auntys and Uncles, somewhere deep in my subconscious mind, I started to feel inferior about my body. To top it all off, I started to develop chronic acne, causing me great agony and pain sometimes making it difficult for me to even go out in public. Everyone started to give me tips, advice and of course, the contact umbers to dermatologists. This was incredibly demotivating to me and it left a deep, negative impression on my mind.
I would, in my heart of hearts, keep questioning as to why I was not ‘normal’ like other women. I saw my friends growing into beautiful young women with ‘perfect assets’ - big breasts and a mighty posterior. Neither did I have any of these, nor did I have some ideal figure of 36-24-36. The only asset that I possessed, which God has bestowed upon me, is a gem of a heart. This belief in myself helped me to be a little less bothered by the snide remarks which people kept making. However, what I failed to realize is that deep inside my heart the bitterness and anger was beginning to grow.
Then when I was twenty, I joined a crash-course to learn meditation and yoga. In the final lap of this retreat, I lost weight drastically. I turned into more of a skeleton as the program required me to live on raw fruits and vegetables. Then one of my team members called me ‘flat chested’ and laughed at me endlessly. Although said in jest, this remark put me through an embarrassment I’ve never forgotten. Mentally affected by this, I let it be at that time and not until much later did I realize that it also had psychological impact on me.
Years passed by and soon I was a careered woman working for a big multinational. I had adopted my lifestyle to suit the ways of corporate culture. During this period, I met lots of people in my life and had many mentors who were top-notch executives from the IT Industry. I tried to be the best and did whatever it took me to look good and to be confident.
It was at this time I had the (dis)pleasure of working with a very senior gentleman and my (so-called) ‘mentor’ who decided that it was his sole duty to educate me in what kind of body I should have. He started to tell me how I have not focused on taking care of myself at a very early age, that I should have sought medical treatment to ensure that my ‘assets’ were well-developed. Though I was startled, I quietly listened to all this free advice he was throwing at me. Then he took it a step further. He looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Your breasts are like ‘Mosquito Bites’.”
“Oh no! I have ‘Mosquito Bites’!” By his purport, I needed to have big boobs and a big butt and no man would ever want to marry me because I don’t have these ‘assets’. He said that I stand no chance of getting a TDH* or a well-to-do man with good prospects. Although I look back now and laugh at myself for accepting his vile commentary, at the time, I went numb and was completely shattered from within. I began to feel terrible about my existence. Once again, I started hating my body and my own self. I wondered why God had created me like this and immediately began to blame my parents for not taking care of me and for not providing me with medical assistance at the right time. Soon my self-pity turned to bitterness and anger and this bubbled like lava in an active volcano, ready to erupt at the littlest thing.
Suddenly, from being a very confident woman, I started to move away from the goals of my life and became negative about everything and everyone around me. I went into a shell and became someone I could not recognize. I was filled with fear of being rejected and hated by people. I was heart-broken and believed that I had nothing redeeming in my life. I was left to a slow death within myself. Then just as I was at my worst, I met the Redeemer** of my life. Over the years, he has shown me how beautiful I am and has taught me this life changing lesson of how to love myself for who I am and not how this world perceives or wants me to be. He showed me how my body is perfect and whatever God has created and bestowed upon me is absolutely the right thing for me.
This Redeemer narrated this beautiful story about a Monk who goes to seek alms from a home and encounters a young teenage girl. This monk until then has never seen a woman or girl. He sees her breasts and asks the girl’s mother if the girl is suffering from some disease. The mother replies simply that God has already made arrangements for her baby to be fed in the future. The purpose of God creating women with breasts was not so she is able to satisfy man’s lusty desires, but to satisfy the greater need of feeding her baby when she gives birth. It is how you want to see the object, you can either see a woman in a lusty manner or revere her as a Mother.
Now you tell me, who has given the right for a man to criticize and body shame a woman?! Will a man marry a woman only because she has the perfect ‘assets’ in place? Or he would want to marry her because he truly loves her? Love is beyond all physical attributes but unfortunately this world is driven by lust and greed and a woman has become nothing but a sex-object, there to satisfy a man’s voracious, lusty desires.
Today, I no longer feel ashamed or embarrassed of my body or even worry that I have small breasts. God has given me the perfect body with beautiful assets, all in perfect proportion! Over the last seven years I have been transformed into a personality whom I have allowed myself to fall in love with and it is with all the love in my heart that I respect and have accepted this version of me.
So, standing tall (at a proud 5’5’’) today, I am empowered and I face the world and this society as I am, content in myself. Today, I have the courage to speak this hard truth of what I have been through in my life and how I have been able to overcome such criticisms. I might not be a Victoria Secret Model but I have that which empowers me to walk the ramps of the Paris or Milan.
To all the beautiful women out there in this world, do NOT allow anyone to body shame you. Be the best version of yourself. Rise and Shine as you are. You are beautiful, Just The Way You Are.
*TDH – As we called it in my younger days, ‘Tall, Dark, Handosme’
**My redeemer is none other than my Preceptor, my ‘KrsnaGuru (#KrsnaKnows).