Besharam Rang from Pathaan: Why we feel it’s time to celebrate woman’s body

It’s another shit storm on Twitter. The debate over what Deepika Padukon e was or was not wearing. The debate over the colour, the cut, the clarity of what she was or was not wearing (for she is nothing less than a diamond, honestly). The debate over a woman’s agency over her body versus a man’s agency over his body–– from Ranveer’s nude shoot hot to  Deepika’s dance vulgar? Etc etc. And in all this utter inanity, because almost no human as perfect-looking as Deepika has been created, my mind was only on one thing––a friend remarking that ‘SRK has the perfect dad bod!’

Now––like any sane woman, I love SRK. After all, we women have spent our entire lives desperately seeking SRK. And, like the 600 million women in India, my jaw dropped when he entered the frame in the now woe-begotten song that like most mediocre things in India has gone on to become famous. But I’ve never understood the phrase ‘dad bod’ since Akki popularised it back home. Dad bod started out as a body-positive term for a normal, ‘softly round’, middle-aged father with a slight paunch, to get co-opted by Indians to mean a father with a hot bod. Only in India, right? But what exactly are we celebrating in the first place?

I am all for celebrating the ascend of the male physique, especially as a tool to subvert female objectification, but applauding it for merely existing? Come on! What exactly do dad bods do to deserve any glory, except for the donation of that one sperm that worked? Why are we celebrating something that doesn’t deserve it? Especially as a counterpoint to something that does? The mom bod!

Why? Let me explain, for it’s not the reasons you think.

I have two small kids. I wake up at 6 AM every day. The early morning slot where I have the most energy to work out, is consumed by getting the children ready for school. The time to go for a walk is consumed by dropping the children to school and then picking them up. The time at home to measure calories is consumed by organising their food, drawers, wardrobe, toys, gifts, life. My diet is dictated many times by what is being served at the birthday parties I take my children to i.e. carbs and sweets, and whatever I can grab on the go. Whenever we have to leave the house, I spend two hours in getting my children ready, packing their snacks and mosquito patches and rubber bands and sunglasses, and matching the shoes and socks that somehow––despite being hyper organised––always manage to go astray.

To me a mom bod is something more than merely cosmetic. It is a body that has carried a life inside it for almost ten months (not nine, mind you, as popularised in mainstream media). It is a body that has been ripped open in front of twenty plus people to push out a human the size of a watermelon. It is a body that has (breast)fed little humans for one year, and in my case, two years per kid. It is a body that has survived sleepless nights for years and still keep a baby alive, when lesser humans cannot survive four days of sleep deprivation. It is a body that has developed the reflexes of a cheetah to save her babies from toppling over the bed, the sofa, the chairs, the everything, to make sure they don’t hear the phrase ‘were you dropped on your head as a child’. It is a body that has learnt the art of holding thirty things in two hands. A body that survives tantrums and shouting and kiddie parties and meltdowns and airplane journeys with kids and playdates and little heads banging its nose and lips. It is a body that has carried love inside and outside it, as it grows, to keep it safe, happy and healthy for its entire lifetime. It is eternal watchfulness. A mom bod with all its stretch marks, haemorrhoids, dark circles, love handles, sagging breasts, cracked nipples, bladder incontinence, frazzled hair, and tummy overhang, is the strongest and fittest body the universe has created. For it does more than 10,000 steps a day and deadlifts. It creates and sustains life. Know anything else that can compare with that?

Ultimately, of course, we need to learn to love our bodies as they are and like the way we look. For weight too is a societal construct. If we want to lose weight or work on our health or fitness, for our own sake, that’s great. But bending societal norms out of shape to appease the sensibilities of a prototype? No thanks! Mom bods, dad bods, SRK bods, all bods are good, for they tell us that we’re lucky to be alive. And that’s all we should be celebrating.

In an era where we fetishize opinions we don’t own, the weekly ‘Moderate Mahila Mandate’ presents unadulterated and non-partisan views on what’s happening to women in India today.

Meghna Pant is a multiple award-winning and bestselling author, screenwriter, columnist and speaker, whose latest novel BOYS DON’T CRY (Penguin Random House) will soon be seen on screen.