I met a school-friend of mine last week. I had gone to his home after a long time of 10 years. I remembered his daughter, Priya, as a smart, intelligent and lively kid. She was good in academics and also was active in other fields like dance. But when i met Priya this time, i was shocked.
Priya had become completely different this time. She had left her college. Did not appear for her Higher secondary exam. Did not want to join us for a movie, of which she was very fond of. Had no friends to chitchat in the evenings. Instead sat in front of the computer chatting with net friends. Watched TV all day. Her change had occurred due to one handicap: weight handicap. She was overweight.
That had triggered the entire vicious pattern. Because she was overweight, she was picked by her class friends for barbs and snide remarks. She started avoiding friends. She had changed three schools in last four years. She avoided neighbourhood friends because of the same reason. As she became reclusive and immobile, she kept on putting more weight. More stress added to more eating which further aggravated the vicious cycle. That brought her to net. When my friend told that she has fallen in love with a net friend at 18, i was not surprised. It is so logicial!
Weight-handicap is as serious as other handicaps ( what we saw as speech handicap of Hrithik Roshan) in creating such vicious patterns. And like other handicaps, it requires much more than willpower to tackle it. Like in speech handicap, it requires support of the groups ( in this case overweight kid groups) who have traveled on a similar path. And once the trigger is sparked, it requires other supporting elements and your love to sustain on that new pattern, until a threshold level is reached. The dynamics remain same.
