Soma

This film is based on a memory of going to a party that my ex who I hadn’t seen in years attended. After gaining weight I was nervous to see him. That night I saw him with a girl who looked like the complete opposite of me. Over the past years I have gained over 50 pounds, significantly changing my body from what I’d always known it to be. At first the weight came quickly, gaining 20lbs in a matter of months and then recently it’s been slower but consistent causing me to outgrow my clothes every three months. When I lay out the reasons why I gained the weight it makes sense. I lost my father. I moved back to the U.S. after living a healthier life abroad. My working and hustling in New York brought on chronic stress. And I found out that due to numerous famines in South Asia during colonial rule, South Asians have more fat deposits due to a “starvation-adapted” physiology passed through generations. But having previously always been a thinner person, the change in my body challenged me mentally. I’ve had to confront my own fatphobic dispositions and societal beauty standards to try to find self-love. It’s been a brutal mental journey trying to love myself still after spending my life feeling like I’d never fit into American beauty standards (even at my thinner size). I’ve learned that if I can’t love my body just yet, I could at least try to be more self-accepting of it, appreciating it for keeping me alive. With this film I wanted to show the inner struggle I’ve gone through of just trying to be okay when nothing fits, when you see your ex with someone new, when you feel out of place at a party. Those uncomfortable moments that you dread. But I also wanted to show that it’s okay to feel all of these things, that friends can help remind you you’re great the way you are, that inspirational moment when you see someone kind-of like you living their best life without their insecurities stopping them.

I still struggle with my body everyday. The body inclusivity movement has become lip-service without much actual change. Now with weight-loss drugs ever present it's become even harder to feel accepting of ourselves when we gain even a little weight. My hope is I find others who are in the same place as me on our journeys and we can find comfort knowing that self-love is a journey.