Of thinner days

I was a tall, lean teenager tortured by uncles , aunts and all my relatives. Every time they saw me they would exclaim in horror 'oh Smee, you've grown so tall, how are we going to find you a boy' !

Like I had a hidden switch somewhere I could turn off and shut down my height !! And then, "God Smee you cant be so thin, you got to gain some weight" !, that would set me wild on an eating spree, peanuts, ghee on rice, butter, whatever I could lay my hands on and not half a kilo gained. To top it all, like cherry on the icing, my hair was long, almost close to my knees, adding to the effect. My friend would say 'you have such great hair, somebody's going to marry you for your hair'. Eeeeeks, that was the wierdest thing ever! especially when I so desperately wanted to chop it off and try looking a bit less 'chechi type'. I did try hinting once to amma, she was like I'd committed blasphemy, 'cut your hair'???? So there I was, tall, with bones peeking out from everywhere, hair falling to the floor, a walking talking coconut tree.

My best friend in college was a chubby rotund thing, we were the perfect foil for each other. She was dieting all the time and me eating. Quite often we've been called laurel and hardy by unruly boys who would stand by the station picking on girls. Five years in college passed away discreetly, all the love-letters and sagas of young, passionate love were not meant for me. My friend in the mean-time succeeded to manage a few epic-creating sagas for herself. Thats another story. Its always preferable to be meatier than lean I guess.

It was during my post-graduation days that I managed to land myself a job and then it happened !! Someone fell in love with me... and I was in seventh heaven. Just to put things in the right perspective, I'd gone through infatuations and attractions, some of them entirely in my head . My love story in school ( bah!) ending when I threw his rose into the bin, till date I have no clue as to why I did that ? But this time, the feeling was mutual, he was in love with scrawny long haired me, and I liked all the 52 moles on his face. Hope he doesnt read this :D. We are still friends, sans the romance. Amongst all other things, he will specially be special for being the first person to make me feel special.