A few years later, I guess it was God's judgement that I be put into a hostel, where the food, while plentiful, was not the kind anybody would wish to eat. But eat it I did because after all, one cannot control the growth hormones forever. In moments of acute self-pity, I often thought that the gruel Mr Squeers dished out in Nicholas Nickleby must have been more palatable. This stuff I did not want more of.

But I had begun eating, and having been deprived for so many years, I was not going to stop. Several years and a baby later, I was fat and bulging. All the pounds I put on and thought was the baby for nine months, was actually me, as I found later. It's still a mystery-where the eight and a half pounds that the gynae told me the son weighed at birth had been hiding all the time. They certainly never showed up on the scale, if my weight postpartum was anything to go by. Still, I consoled myself, the pendulum had swung once, it would swing back to thin soon.

Ten years later, I was still waiting for it to swing back. Worse, I could no longer tell anyone who raised their eyebrows at me that I'd just had a baby. Plenty of others had had their baby by then, and made the pendulum swing back, too.

I tried to tell myself that the fat was hereditary-my father was fat, after all... And what the hell, it might be terrible for those who had to look at me, but what difference did it make to me? I did not even own a full-length mirror. And my face, when I did look at it, had always been round.

But there were still problems. When I went to buy a ready-made kurta, I often found that what fitted me vertically, wouldn't get down my shoulders. And what fitted me horizontally, I could double as a mop for my floor.Plus, it was the fashion to be anorexic. The role models around me were-well, if you looked at them sideways, you'd probably not see them at all. In contrast, I looked even huger. It was no using wishing the age of Asha Parekh and Meena Kumari would come back. Karisma and Urmila were here to stay.

Thus was I prodded into deciding that I could no longer turn the other cheek to my excess adipose. But shedding it posed as big a problem. Exercise I could not and would not do. Instead, I went and joined up for a fat reducing programme, which promised: "No diet, no exercise, we'll just burn away your fat." Wow! I thought to myself. Just what I want. And went and paid up a sum that I certainly hadn't spent putting on the fat.

On the very first day, the dietician put a chart before me. I looked at it in horror. No butter, no chocolate, no ice creams, no meat. "But you said no diet?" I squeaked in panic. "Yes, you can eat everything, but in moderation. One chapati instead of two, but butter and sugar are definitely out," said the sylph-like creature sitting in front of me.

After a week of cellotherm and muscle toning, the fat hadn't bulged. The sylph looked sternly at me, "You need to walk-a brisk walk for 45 minutes every day." This time I didn't even squeak. I could only think of all the money at stake if I did.

By Week 8, I had shed some kilos, but the sylph was still not satisfied. "You're going too slow," she said. "You just don't look good on my progress chart." She studied me contemplatively. "I think you should switch to soup and salad for dinner. Last night, you had a paneer burger!" The last, accusingly.

Bitterly I asked her, "Do you have any children?" I was met with a blank stare. I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity. If she did not even know the word, how could she know how it was to diet in the same house as a creature who consumed burgers and ice cream as if it were his birthright?

Nevertheless, five months later, I was minus 10 kilos, and in a rather narcissistic frame of mind. I was free of the programme, and still walking briskly. Best of all, the fat wasn't coming back the way I had dreaded. I indulged in a half-length mirror, and then went and splurged on a new wardrobe, even getting-rather daringly for me-some of the clingy stuff I had gazed longingly at before. It was a heady experience.

Too heady, it seems now, for a year later, here I am staring despairingly at my scales, and wondering when the gap between `after' and `before' will close finally. The clingy clothes have been put away, and I doubt I'll get even a spoon for them from the bartanwali. Worse, I don't have the money or the will-power for a second session at the dietician's. The pendulum had swung back, and then swung again far too soon.

Soon, I'll be consoling myself like before: "So what? I'm fat, but I'm fantastic!" In the end, fat is all that remains.