Author: Bhavna Harchandani
Joah was a sixteen-year-old young, cheerful and bubbly girl. I met her, last summer at the local gym. She belonged to a healthy and wealthy Hindu Indian family whose ancestors hailed from Sindh, located now in Pakistan. They had rich food habits and living standards as they belonged to the upper class since the family has well-established business pan India. Studying in plush expensive public school and having travelled across the world in her school holidays even before she could complete her intermediate, Joah was a girl born with a silver spoon in mouth. There was no doubt in her intelligence, she enjoyed reading literature and stood among the top three students of her class. Joah had all the facilities and amenities that any teenager could wish for. Updated with the latest configured iPhone and airpords, iPad for her leisure, kindle for her reading, subscriptions to online television portals such as Netflix for entertainment, a chauffeured car for her commutation and travels, credit cards for her expense and unlimited access to her favorite sweets and foods, Joah’s every wish was fulfilled. She had no responsibilities except to look after her own affairs with the support of her family. She had an elder brother who was a fitness freak, healthy parents and hale and hearty grandparents who were well known in her native town of Bombay.
We all wish to have such a worry-free life where we get all the materialistic pleasures of life without having much to work for. Joah’s life was ideal. But do you think that she did not have any issues or problems in her life? Was she blessed to such an extent that she could enjoy the privileges and perks of happiness without a pinch of hurt, pain or sorrow? We all see only one side of the coin, the side that is projected to us. We either fail to observe or see the other side or we get so overwhelmed by the positives that we forget about the things that are lacking. Throughout this reading so far, I wonder if anyone thought, how Joah looked and whether she could physically move around like any other normal healthy human being in their teenage could? Joah was the only member in her family who was dark skinned and short heighted in comparison to the rest of her family. But that’s not all, Joah had a high BMI, she was neither fat nor overweight, but she was obese. She suffered from hormonal imbalance at such a young age. Joah suffered from PCOD, polycystic ovarian disease. It is a condition where the menstrual flow is irregular and ranges from few days to few months and at times heavy bleeding that she had to miss her school and classes. Moreover, she suffered from depression. She had no friends whom she could reach out in sickness and health. Her classmates made fun of her, mocked her for her inability to participate in sports and other cultural activities at school.
Not only this, the other indirect nag would be about her dark skin and short height with heavyweight that irritated her the most. Not a single day would pass when she would not be disturbed by comments and taunts that were passed on by strangers and school mates. Her inability to participate in sports, walk fast, jump or even stand for more than five minutes, made her life difficult and depressed. The pressure of studies and time constraints disallowed her to join extracurricular activities as she would take extra classes for her architectural entrance. She felt that she must buy friends to be with her and so she would shower best and expensive gifts on others so that she could get a company to spend some time with. She was lonely and lacked the presence of true friends or an alter ego who could motivate her and push her and simply be with her. That’s why she would buy everything that could give her the pleasure or the joy of being with a friend or happiness. Often people took advantage of her generosity and left her alone once they were done with the help she offered. She did have acquaintance and mates but not someone close enough to understand her and help her out in fighting against her heavy body and depression.
One fine day after her board exams ended, she was going back to her home, the car stopped at the signal where she saw a three-legged stray dog trying to jump over the divider to cross the road. It seemed that the dog was freshly injured and was in pain. Yet, it didn’t stop trying to jump over the divider. Joah observed the dog until the signal went green in 90 secs. Those 90 seconds changed her perception about the approach in life. After several attempts, the dog succeeded in crossing the divider and a busy road and ran towards an autistic child sitting on a bench eating ice cream. The dog wagged its tail and licked the boy’s feet and continued wagging its tail despite the pain of fresh injury. The autistic boy gently moved his hand which held the ice cream and gave it to the dog. The dog licked the ice cream and the boy smiled happily. This incident brought a genuine smile on Joah’s face. She felt internal happiness that she had been searching for. Perhaps she had learnt to realize the significance of the present moment and learning to live for now. She realized that deformities and abnormalities should not stop anyone from feeling happy for the self. That the self is free. It just needs time to become friends with our self first and then the rest follows automatically. The dog was happy with its imperfections and the boy was happy even in his state of autism. The dog was happy to meet his autistic friend even though it was in pain and the boy shared his only ice cream with the dog.
Joah decided to unburden herself and get out of the bondage of obesity that was the real culprit of her depression. She began looking for ways to reduce her weight and check out measures that could help her ease her PCOD. She approached a nutritionist and a personal trainer at the gym so that she could streamline her life. She used mobile applications to track her progress, she made friends at the gym with whom she would fix up month targets of weight reduction. She had joined various social groups offline that made her interact face to face with one on one conversations with real people suffering from real problems. She even joined animal welfare group which gave her an opportunity to interact with animals. Within a span of six months, Joah had managed to lose ten kilograms, adopted a pet dog and had made friends with people of all age group. Her mother helped her in maintaining her diet and gym routine as well as interacting with the groups.
When I asked her about her experience of having friends and losing weight, Joah gladly responded, “Unburden yourself, you will automatically lose your weight. Carry forward your interests, and the world will follow you. Make a choice and don’t let people make you an option in their life. And most importantly, Live yourself, Live now. Live real and not virtual. That’s the way it is! Say hello to Life .”
It only takes a few seconds to realize what we really want. The power to heal lies within us. We have to take a step forward to unfold our self and reach out. A change in our perception towards positivity can change our life completely.
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