Is beauty breast-deep?
"Hi, I am Mohini, a 27-year-old, software engineer. I was engaged to be married to a boy I have loved for the last year. I have a really embarrassing problem. I have very, very small breasts. In fact, my nipples are also very light in color. My boyfriend seemed okay with it. As in, we never had sex, so he has never seen me naked. And he always bought me push up bras. And even ordered some imported gel creams that he asked me to massage over my cleavage at night. He used to joke saying that I should think of him while doing that. I have been to a surgeon. But, I am scared of getting silicon implants. It is costly, also. Once our talks of marriage begun, my boyfriend seemed changed, and suddenly backed off, claiming his family had a problem with my physical appearance, and was doubtful of my child-bearing abilities, given that he is the only son. I told him I can prove medically I am fit for pregnancy, but after several fights I realized that actually it was the size of my breasts that caused this problem. I am shattered, and honestly ask myself if he ever loved me at all? Are breasts not a part of my body? Why must every Indian man then obsess about them? Are small-breasted women not complete in their womanhood?"
I took a minute to process this query. Just last week when I was offering counsel, as part of a Relationship Column for a leading marriage magazine. While a part of me wanted to tell Mohini that she was better off sans this jerk, and that he was probably just a regular Indian guy who fantasized about small breasted chicks, while not having the guts to defend his choices to his family, a part of me knew that I'd be bullshitting. That no matter how often we repeat the feminist rant that women are above their flesh, or rake up the burn the bra movement to justify our small everyday victories, sometimes a woman is just her breasts. The way we have been taught to seek validation - via our body parts and its varied functions and what it must mean to generations of men - lovers, husbands, neighbors, bosses, brothers…tits, tongue, tissue, tampons. The list is endless.
The truth is breasts are a big deal. And while I am personally reasonably well endowed, thanks to my Bengali genes, I'm guessing, a fair share of women have faced and continue to bear the brunt of feeling lesser, in some way. Our breasts almost our first line of defense. The first thing a man conventionally notices - the object of fantasy, and fornication. Of Judgment and justice, in much the same vein. The raison d'être of poets and sculptors, the highest ideal of the feminine form - celebrated in innumerable novels and poems, immortalised in ancient murals and temple carvings. The size of her breasts an integral part of her sensuality. Her sex. Her sexual prowess.
"As a teenager, I was extremely conscious of my boobs. I mean, I was often teased as looking like a boy. My own brother pinching me hard, saying it was the only way I would develop bigger assets. Honestly, mine were a liability. I always wore baggy clothes to camouflage my chest, and often stuffed cotton dupattas to make them seem bigger. On dates, etc. Not just boys, but my own mother made a big deal about the size of my breasts claiming it would pose an impediment at the time of my marriage. Some of my cousins, poked fun of me in public, calling me 'chinky, Chinese…'My self esteem directly proportionate to the size of my breasts. I never had a steady boyfriend, and have sometimes wondered if my mom was correct. Asking myself would I have met the same fate if I had a face full of ugly acne, or maybe, was really fat, or something? Why my own sister had bigger breasts, and not me? If something like diabetes can be hereditary, why not, our breasts? If Kareena Kapoor is really busty, or is it just the wonder bra effect? If all women must be the object of masturbation and myth? Is beauty actually breast-deep?' pauses 34-year-old journalist Amrita Roy (name changed on request) who adds that she hates dressing up as a girl. Living in jeans, mostly. Boy cut hair. 'A man I met on a dating site once asked me if I was a butch. He said, it's his biggest fetish to watch lesbians make out. He had a thing for Caucasians he laughed. Small tits. Tight ass. Big…." she says no more.
There is an awkward silence.
As I recall my own moment of personal shame. As a young adolescent on my first ever train holiday to Jaisalmer. I was in class six. I was waiting outside the toilet. When a pair of brawny hands groped me in the menacing darkness. As a man with the darkest black eyelashes twisted my nipples painfully, gritting his teeth, murmuring under his breath. "Umm… baby… kya bara maal hain… iss umaar mein… choosne de janeman…umm… mujhe sari raat chusna hain…" I grimace as I type this. A part of me still scared. The same part that blamed myself, hiding my deepest scar from my parents, wearing it, as a common coward does. Under layers of false bravado. When the truth is I still avoid trains. Plunging necklines. The incident having turned me horribly self-conscious, at an age when my breasts were just beginning to be connected to the larger version of my own womanhood - the first chapter.
Like I felt, the morning, I started bleeding, during a family puja. My grand-mother admonishing me, ass I watched the rest of the rituals, through a narrow slit in the door. An outcast. Wondering if the image of Saraswati that was being fastidiously invoked back then, was not the same kind of woman? If men didn't letch at her breasts, or compose lewd songs about them? If she was ever touched, in the wrong way? If she called herself fat? Just because she had plump breasts? If they affected the way they did millions of girls? Shattering her, somewhere?
It's easy to allege that men are the biggest threat to our breasts. But, isn't Bollywood, I ask? Or Bigg Boss, for that matter? Or sleazy item songs and porn stars turned heroines like Leone and Sherlyn Chopra whose breasts are nothing short of a national fixation. The camera conveniently zooming in on the sacred space between a woman's breasts - shame and success. Solace and sodomy. Stars vs. the rest.
I mean, for all the angry outbursts about the infamous Times of India fiasco about Deepika Padukone's cleavage, did we ask ourselves, if this were the first time the publication carried snapshots of celebs, highlighting the same feature, or that the Managing Editor of its lifestyle supplements who justified its stand, is a woman, herself. And, which actress or model doesn't flaunt her breasts? Which choreographer doesn't incorporate the popular dhakdhak step? Which man dressed as a woman in C-grade, sexist comedies like Humshakkals and Comedy Nights With Kapil, doesn't use the oft-caricatured conical bras? A woman's breasts more a pin-up tool, and, rarely a form of our protest. An indispensable part of her sex appeal. Her sexual salvation. The reason a man rejects a woman. The purpose of ridicule, in college canteens and office loos. You're either busty or flat-chested. Your breasts must be defined. They must be judged. And justified. They must fit the bill. Be part of a formulae. Fantasy. Folklore. Fascination. Fetish.
Breasts are rarely allowed feelings, and, yet more often than not they bear the brunt of fakeness. "Woo hoo! It's Happy Cleavage Day. How should I celebrate?" famously tweeted Poonam Pandey, the 21-year-old who catapulted to fame during the Cricket World Cup in 2011 by offering to run naked around Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai to motivate Team India. Regularly posting shots of her voluptuous bust line on Twitter and YouTube videos, that naturally escalates into a veritable argument - "are those for real?"
Breasts are a source of shame, and sustenance. What with breast surgery having replaced the popular nose job in India, in the last couple of years, with not just motor mouth celebs like Rakhi Sawant swearing by its benefits. "Jo cheezein God nahi deta, wo doctor deta hai (whatever God doesn't provide, the doctor does)," the much talked about quote by Sawant is now the mantra of a whole generation of women. In a startling study, Max Healthcare, Delhi, had analysed over 1,000 patients undergoing breast surgery in the national capital. The statistics revealed that the demand was most in the 25-45 age group, with 43 per cent women being unmarried. About 53 per cent women were socially and financially independent; 67 per cent come from the middle and 25 per cent from elite classes. No longer the shy, embarrassed patients of the past. There were 51,000 breast enlargement surgeries in India in 2010-11, out of 1.5 million across the world, ascertains the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery survey.
No wonder than that despite a whopping Rs. 1.5 lakh-2.5 lakh, the stigma attached to breast surgeries is becoming a thing of the past. With an upwardly mobile middle class, new generation implants, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration entering our medical market, implants currently range from the traditional silicone pouches to saline bags that resemble water balloons, to cohesive silicone which combines both and has the least chance of rupturing or losing shape. These implants have a life-long warranty. Bespoke breasts, so to say!
"I was scared at first. I kept looking at my breasts. I always thought they were okay. Until…" recalls Meenakshi Rao, a breast-cancer survivor and a mother of a one-year-old who still has to go for a check-up every three months, despite removing both her breasts and undergoing extensive chemotherapy. "I wish I had gone earlier… wish I wasn't so scared of the consequences, fearing the worst, the day I touched my breasts for the first time… I had forgotten the feeling… the aloneness that comes with it…your breasts stand for the life you've had as a woman…despite all our education, we are still daunted by our breasts, I guess. The way it is linked to our most intimate gender experience - our mothers, our husbands, our children…"
The GLOBOCAN (WHO) estimate in 2012 revealed that 70,218 women died in India due to breast cancer, more than any other country in the world (second: China - 47,984 deaths and third: US - 43,909 deaths). Breast cancer continues to be the most common cancer in women responsible for 25 per cent to 31 per cent of all cancers in women in Indian cities.
And, just to end, here's a breast story that will make you smile... even if it's just for a few seconds.
"Dear Didi… Just dumped this fellow Ma and Baba made me meet… through some dumb matrimonial site. Guess why? He had the most gianormous man boobs. I swear am not exaggerating. He needed a bra. And I was dying to tell him that… anyway, so that means I'm still sexy...and free… Do you know how I celebrated? I just got myself the sexiest tattoo over my left breast. Angel wings - one broken. I'm Facebooking the picture as we speak. I knew this would make you happy. Go on, get one yourself… Bonti…"
A study by the Association of Plastic Surgeons of India reveals that male breast surgery has taken a giant leap of nearly 150 per cent in the last five years.
Tit for tat, eh?