Primalsoup

[Representative Image generated using AI]

I’d been traveling to Bombay for work and a string of errands over the past few weeks. With all the back-to-back trips, my suitcase was bursting with dirty clothes. Getting laundry done at the hotel didn’t make sense unless I wanted to part with half my salary. Luckily, I can still count, so I packed just enough outfits to survive.

On my last day, I called a friend to let her know I was in “her” city but getting ready to leave. She, predictably, whined and insisted I stay an extra day so we could catch up. I rattled off a list of reasons why I had to get back to Bangalore: work, too much travel, my coffee maker misses me—you know the drill. Haven’t you ever felt that almost physical ache to return home after work-induced travel? But friends are a stubborn lot, and she brushed aside every excuse. Finally, I told her, “I don’t have any more clothes left. I can’t possibly stay on.”

“You could wear my stuff,” she began, then hesitated. Our friendship may have grown stronger over the years, but our Body Mass Indexes had not followed the same trend. Guilty over making me feel bad (honestly, I didn’t really care) she dropped the subject.

That got me thinking about my cousin, Ramu Singh (not her real name, obviously), and our childhood fascination with each other’s clothes. We were practically twins, born just months apart and spending our early years in close proximity. Several childhood photos capture my mom trying to wrangle the two of us, both clearly displeased with sharing her attention.

We grew up in different worlds—me in small North Indian cantonment towns, Ramu in a small town in Tamil Nadu. Every summer, we’d visit her family, and those two days were the highlight of my vacation. Of course, I spent the first half of each trip shy and sulking, the next half observing, and before I knew it, time had flown by.

The best part of our visits was the photos we’d take when we went out and, of course, the clothes we wore. My mom was a skilled tailor, so I had plenty of beautiful, handmade outfits that didn’t break the bank. But despite that, both Ramu and I became fixated on each other’s wardrobes. We were each other’s fashion icons and also, hilariously, the aspirational version of the other. I wanted her height, she wanted my nose—fair trade.

Outings always involved squabbles over whose clothes were nicer. “Ramu’s dress is clearly better,” I’d sulk. She felt the same about mine. So, we did what any logical kids would do: we swapped. I was thrilled to wear her clothes, thinking I might look as pretty as she did. Unfortunately, I soon discovered her clothes looked better on her. Typical.

From ages six to sixteen, this clothes-swapping ritual was our vacation routine. Our moms joked that one day we’d end up swapping husbands.

As a young adult, while I stopped sharing clothes with Ramu, we stayed close. At twenty-one, I suggested we marry two brothers and make the family miserable. She, busy with her Masters in Social Work and had dreams to make the world better, had no time for my wild schemes. Eventually, she met Mr. Singh and did get married. Despite gaining a husband, two babies, and two dogs, our friendship survived unscathed. What didn’t survive, though, was our matching clothing sizes. She’s now a miserable XS (not that I ever was), while I’ve… let’s just say – evolved.

Since losing weight isn’t as easy as it sounds (and believe me, I’ve tried), I figure my best bet is to wait for her to get fat. It has been a lifetime now, and I don’t see how that is going to happen!

That reminds me of a book I read years ago—Ladies Coupe by Anita Nair. It follows the stories of women sharing their lives in the intimate space of a train. In one chapter, “Oil of Vitriol,” there’s a story about a woman who, out of revenge, makes her good-looking husband fat. Though I read it almost fifteen years ago, it stuck with me.

“God didn’t make Ebenezer Paulraj a fat man. I did. I, Margaret Shanthi, did it with the sole desire for revenge. To erode his self-esteem and shake the very foundations of his being. To rid the world of a creature who, if allowed to remain the way he was—slim, lithe, and arrogant—would continue to harvest sorrow with single-minded joy.”

There’s a faint echo of this sentiment in Butter by Asako Yuzuki, which I’m currently reading. Inspired by the real case of a convicted con woman and serial killer—the “Konkatsu Killer”—Yuzuki’s Butter is an unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, and the pleasures of food in Japan.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the matter at hand: finding dresses that are size-agnostic. Kaftans, perhaps?