Anirudh looked uncomfortable but he nodded somewhat encouragingly. ‘I feel like this is what Nisha and I have been trying to tell you all along,’ he said finally.

‘Yeah, and it’s taken you so long to get your head around it. We didn’t know it was called body-neutrality or that there’s a whole movement or whatever. We don’t know the labels. But we do know that you’re awesome and it’s to do with you. As a person. Not what you look like, and especially not what your body looks like,’ Nisha said. She looked nervous as she said it.

She turned to Anirudh for support and I caught that fleeting look on his face, that easily readable look which proclaimed to everyone that he loved her. It was fascinating the way his expression changed when she directed her gaze at him. Was my face as transparent as his? Had Nisha seen and understood what his expression meant?

‘Ananya, we know you’ve been to a lot of trouble to change how you look. We’re not saying that was pointless. But there’s a reason you have to stop hating your body. And, like what this movement says, you don’t have to love your body either. Just think of your body as a body,’ she said.

‘So I don’t have to think about how fat and ugly and disgusting I am,’ I asked, relishing the words even as they pierced my heart.

Nisha held my hand firmly and shook her head. She looked livid. ‘You are not any of those things.’

‘You’re my friend. You’re going to say that anyway. I don’t have any special qualities,’ I told her.

She frowned. ‘What?’

‘I’m mediocre in every way. Looks, studies and of course, that elusive thing that I need to figure out about my future,’ I said.

‘That’s because you’re normal. Like me,’ she said.

I snorted. ‘We’re hardly anything alike,’ I told her in an accusatory tone.

She narrowed her eyes. ‘Because I know what I want to do? I’ll be studying architecture, but there’s no guarantee I’ll stick to just being an architect later on in life. Or is it because I’m thin and you’re not? Dude, we’re all human. We’re all imperfect. My arms are like sticks and I wish they weren’t like that but I don’t hate myself. I’m okay with it,’ she insisted.

It wasn’t really the same, I thought. Thin people weren’t shamed the same way fat people were. All the same, I listened to her in silence, wishing she’d said this to me earlier, when I’d waged a battle against my body. She had tried—but I hadn’t taken her seriously.

I was so quiet that I could sense their uneasiness. Both Nisha and Anirudh were watching me silently.