At 80 kilos, Neha was the fattest girl in her class. Kind people like her doting grandma called her ‘well-built’. Her mother called her fat and a year ago, when her weight increased from a svelte seventy five to eighty kilos, parked her with a physical trainer. Since then, the trainer came to Neha’s house in Bandra three days a week and put her through a routine that would have made Saina Nehwal look like a rookie. To no effect. The weighing scale needle flickered between eighty and eighty one kilos consistently. A kind doctor had suggested that there might be some chemical imbalance in Neha’s body. A battery of blood tests later it was discovered that Neha’s body was normal, except for the adipose. The sad fact emerged: Neha was fat and simply needed to go easy on the sweets to lose weight.
Normal, in Rajni Verma, Neha’s mother’s opinion, was what she herself was. At the age of forty- six, she weighed fifty- seven kilos and had done so for the last twenty years. On a five foot-five frame, those kilos sat very lightly indeed, and Rajni’s daily gym routine of two hours had her packing muscles that almost possessed a life of their own. Where Rajni looked like India’s answer to Nicole Kidman, her only daughter looked like she could be put in the pan to fry some fish, otherwise known as a lump of lard. It was enough to drive any mother crazy, and Rajni was no exception. She was going crazy. If only Neha would get off her backside and do something, anything, to become thinner. But all she did was sit at her computer all day long, writing goodness knew what rubbish.
At thirteen Neha had been cutely chubby, at fourteen over-developed, at fifteen overweight, and now, two years later, she was obese in all senses of the word. Why, fumed Rajni, couldn’t her daughter see herself in the mirror and do something about it? Last week, she had taken Neha to a Tarun Tahiliani sale, hoping that the exquisite clothes would awaken a desire in Neha to do something to wear them. Neha had taken one indifferent look at them, and declared, ‘Mom, seriously! You don’t think I’m into bling, do you?’
Rajni, who had worn her prettiest outfit for the visit, swallowed her ire at this insult and bought a frothy pink creation for herself, to be worn at the next society gathering that she was invited to. ‘I thought you might like to wear something like this at the French Consulate do,’ she
said weakly.
The invitation from the French Consulate had come a month ago. The Consulate was celebrating Bastille Day on 14 July, and had invited Rajni in an initiative to woo women entrepreneurs. Rajni Verma was known as one of the top landscape consultants in the city and had done the consulate’s garden. Though she had expected the invitation, she was still more than flattered to receive it. It was rumoured that Aamir Khan was going to be there. Perhaps she would be introduced to him, perhaps she would talk to him about the landscaping possibilities at his farmhouse, perhaps he would…The dream crashed into reality as a vision of her daughter rose in front of Rajni’s eyes. How would she ever be taken seriously with such an obese daughter? She would have to take Neha along to the party, of course. The card said ‘with family’, and Neha was the only family she had after she divorced her husband ten years ago when she found him on their couch with his tongue trying to touch the glottis of their next door neighbour. Now Neha visited her father once a week at his apartment downtown. Unlike Rajni, he had remarried, a woman who rustled up the best paobhaji in the world, according to Neha. This Rajni took for what it was, an accusation that she, Rajni, was an incompetent cook and homemaker, concerned only with her work and not with her daughter. Paobhaji indeed! A dish with a thousand calories in each bite. Did her ex want to kill his daughter? Sprouts and tofu were what she needed, not a meal with more butter than the Amul factory. The screaming match that had followed the first paobhaji visit hadn’t helped either.
‘How could you eat that stuff? You know even a sniff will lead to kilos.’
‘At least I got a sniff,’ yelled Neha back. ‘In this place I wouldn’t even catch a glimpse of anything remotely edible.’
Neha’s vocabulary was her biggest strength, and she used it to run circles around her mother. What did her mother know about the stress of being the topper in class? Or getting admission to the best university in the US? All she saw was her clients, rich people with more money than sense, who found nothing wrong in making rooftop gardens while people died of dehydration. Well, not exactly died, no, but definitely faced water shortage. And all this fuss about losing weight! As though there weren’t more important things in life! Like getting the next science scholarship in school. Was eating some paobhaji really such a big deal if it helped her to focus on her work? The butter had an extremely soothing effect on her nerves, and she felt a lot happier with some fat inside her.
‘So what do you plan to wear on the 14th?’ asked Rajni, adopting a casual tone. ‘Do you have something fancy?’
Another paobhaji row had happened just yesterday, and Neha was in no mood to forgive her mother. ‘I don’t know,’ she said shortly. ‘I haven’t thought about it. In any case, you know my entire wardrobe.’
That, sighed Rajni silently, was the whole problem. She did know her daughter’s entire wardrobe, and nothing in it was even remotely suitable for a gala evening amongst the who’s who of the city. However, she sensed that suggesting another trip to a clothing store wouldn’t go down well with her daughter. Perhaps something would emerge at the last minute. Miracles happened. Jesus Christ had walked on water, hadn’t he?
Finally a miracle did happen but not the one that Rajni had expected. Her daughter hadn’t shed ten kilos in her sleep. ‘Mom, something’s come up.
I can’t come with you to the French Consulate,’ declared Neha the night before the event.
‘Why?’
‘I have a very important assignment from school. I can’t skip it. Sorry, mom.’
When Rajni’s grandmother had died, she had felt both sorrow and relief, sorrow that she had lost a treasured relative, and relief that she hadn’t had to minister to an old and sick woman. Something similar went through her now. She didn’t want to go to the party alone, she realised. She wanted her daughter with her. But she also wanted a slim daughter with her. It was awkward to be seen with someone who looked like a wrestler without a cause.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Rajni anxiously. ‘I was looking forward to the evening. The two of us haven’t had a night out in a while.’
‘Yes, I know,’ said Neha in a softer tone. ‘I’ve been really busy with school stuff, you know. We’ll go out later, I promise.’
On a different day, Rajni might have laughed aloud at the conversation. Talk about role reversal!
The party was in full swing when Rajni got there, engulfed in her Tarun Tahiliani creation. She looked like a million dollars, she knew, but didn’t feel like them. Something was missing, and she knew what. An eighty kilo piece of flesh called Neha was indeed making her absence felt. Now Rajni wished she had done more to persuade her daughter to join her. She knew she had let the topic go, relieved not to have to explain to everyone there why Neha didn’t look much like her. But without her daughter by her side, the party felt flat even though Aamir Khan was there. Ideally, Rajni should by now have been angling for an introduction to the actor, but she had suddenly lost heart. She mingled with the rest of the guests, only coming up short when the Consul General’s wife said to her, ‘Your daughter’s really talented, isn’t she?’
Rajni knew that mistaken identity and diplomacy weren’t exactly best friends, but everyone could make a mistake. Clearly Mrs. Consul-General had made one now. ‘My daughter? But…’
‘Neha told us you’d be coming here today. Isn’t that a wonderful coincidence? Of course, as her mother you would have received an invitation, but it’s nicer to get one independently, isn’t it?’
Rajni looked around for a chair to place her suddenly weak bottom upon, but there wasn’t one close by, and she wondered if she was going to fall to the ground and disgrace herself. What was this woman talking about? And how did she know Neha?
Just then the lights dimmed and her host said, ‘Oh excuse me. The show’s about to begin. I must see that everything’s fine.’ She walked off, but before Rajni could begin to sort out the tangle in her head, the microphone came to life.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said a smooth female voice, ‘tonight we have a special surprise for you. A few months ago, the Consulate, in its continuing venture to engage with Indian society where it matters, announced a school contest for short films on socially relevant subjects by high school students. The best three entries will be shown at all French Consulates in Asia as well as at other venues. The French government has also announced a college scholarship for the winners. Tonight, we are going to show the winning film, Living without Water, made by Neha Verma. Neha, please come to the mike and say a few words first.’
As Neha walked up to the podium, a spotlight followed her, and Rajni saw her daughter, dressed in a stunning teal churidar outfit, take the mike. Neha smiled and then waved. ‘Hi mom,’ she called out as Rajni found the spotlight had changed direction to now land on her. Most people in the audience laughed good-naturedly. ‘My mother is a landscape artist,’ said Neha, when the spotlight fell on her face again, ‘one of the best in the city. As a child I used to accompany her to the various sites and see the huge amount of work that she put into her designs. At the same time, I couldn’t help but notice how much water was consumed by each of her creations while large parts of our city remained dry. This dichotomy has puzzled and offended me. My mom’s designs are truly beautiful but they come at a cost. This film is about that cost. The only thing I wish to add is that I’m proud of my mom, Mrs Rajni Verma. She’s the best mom in the world, and the prettiest, as you’ve all seen. And now, please enjoy the film.’
The spotlight went off to thunderous applause. Rajni sniffed back her tears, and suddenly found a pair of fat arms engulfing her from behind. ‘How’s the surprise?’ whispered Neha.
‘Neha Verma,’ said Rajni, swallowing her tears and trying to hide her overwhelming pride in her daughter, ‘don’t you dare go to France looking like this. You must lose twenty kilos, starting tomorrow.’
- Sangeeta Mall
