You're fat!!!

Indians don't hold back when it comes to commenting on another person's figure/weight. Now maybe it's just people at my place of work. I'd also like to say, "maybe it's just because they've become very comfortable with me and don't feel the need to censor themselves". But the latter is definitely not true. My first day at work, J, a guy who met me when I was in Houston, told me that it looked like I'd gained 10 kgs (22 pounds) since he last saw me!

Since then the people at work don't seem to mind giving me a piece of their mind when it comes to my weight, or what I'm eating etc. Stuff like, "Are you sure you want to eat that?" or "Hmm, have you gained weight recently?" or "Man, if this is you now, I wonder what you'll look like after marriage." That last one comes from this observation that guys in India balloon up after marriage. That is understandable because these people are usually working odd hours, eating lousy food, which translates to not eating at all. But after marriage, with a wife that's cooking tasty food every meal, the weight gain is inevitable.

Thing is, I don't mind these comments because I actually have lost weight after coming to India, my clothes are loose. But the sad truth is that while I was average or a little above average when I was in the US, I will always be significantly over the average weight while I'm in India. (The plus side to this is that while I was definitely much below average height in the US, I am of average or at worst, slightly below average height in India. Almost all the girls at work are shorter than me, many by about 3-4 inches, which almost never happened in the US.)

One change I've noticed in India is that a lot more people are now getting health conscious. Indians will never balloon up like Americans simply because they walk a lot more, eat out a lot less and in general have a different genetic composition. But now I'm seeing more people frequenting Gyms. They're actually aware of what's in the food they're eating. They're not counting calories or obsessively dieting, but atleast they don't stare at me when I say "this food is too fattening". My parents, maybe because of constant nagging from me and my brother, have begun eating earlier in the nights and reduced the quantity of rice they eat. A good change.

One last observation. The "fat" Indians I have seen almost always fall into one particular body type. They don't seem to have any fat on their faces, but their midsection and posteriors gain weight. These are people who by looking at their face you'd think were thin but certainly have a "tire" around them.