Submit your Article

A bitter truth: We Nepalis are horrible at budgeting and saving. We first spend and then we plan to save. Regardless of whether you are making a couple of thousands or hundreds of thousands, if you are not properly budgeting and saving, you will live with a financial crunch throughout your life.“Spend first save later" is the adage we Nepalis live by. It is a grim reality of our society. Any financial planner true to her profession shall strictly proscribe this practice as it invariably leads to no or miniscule returns.

We live in a country where we struggle even for basic needs, which our government is incompetent to provide, be that water, electricity or medical assistance. Just look at the recent pandemic and vaccine fiasco! Medical bills are piling up and people are taking out loans even as their body ails, which is the worst nightmare for anyone.

I understand that business people will never have cash in their hands. And the theory is that if you have a lot of hard cash, you are going wrong somewhere in investing and growing your business. There are different perspectives on investments and returns. We are not discussing that. We are rather getting into the basics of saving and how it can be done without thinking of it as rocket science.

If you listen to successful people, they have one thing in common: the willingness to sacrifice, for a future gain. It is fascinating to hear a Microsoft, Apple or Tesla starting out from a garage to a billion-dollar-company but we do not care to hear about how every penny was counted and saved. So what is the success formula for savings? Borrowing the words of Warren Buffet, the legendary investor and world’s richest man, “Don’t save what is left after spending; spend what is left after saving.” 

The magic seems to lie in savings first. It eliminates the problem of not having enough to save at the end of the month. Saving first also ensures that we are forced to budget and develop frugality in our spending. It is not about how much you earn but how much you save before you spend. It’s not so much about earning in thousands or lakhs but more about saving first and budgeting our expenses. That’s the key to saving for the future and securing our financial freedom.

But how do we start? What I have learned from American investment guru Dave Ramsay is to save $1,000 (Rs 120,000 approx) every year as an emergency fund. This fund should not be cracked open for a holiday or to buy that Michael Kor mink coat from the fall collection or that sofa set you have been eyeing for some time. This is for your medical emergencies. 

I know a lot of you are giving me big eyes as it seems like a lot of money and I bet it is. Still, I say it is not impossible. The only thing that we might have to cut down on is the money we spend eating out. For example, if you are spending Rs 200 a day while having lunch outside during office hours, you can actually carry your lunch from home. This is an unseen saving that we do everyday. The only hard work is that you have to cook your lunch before leaving for work. Even if you save Rs 100 a day, that is five days a week, making it Rs 500 per week. That makes it Rs 2,000 a month, which doesn’t seem like a big amount but when you do that for a year, you get Rs 24,000. 

If you really want to save, the biggest sacrifice is to quit smoking and drinking. At an average, a restaurant charges you Rs 550 for a bottle of beer that costs you Rs 275 in retail. Now if you really want to drink, you can drink at home. The beer will give you the same kick that it gives you at home or at the cafe.

That said, it is absolutely okay to go out for dinner once in a while. That again is after you have done your savings. We all deserve to celebrate achievements.

Let’s assume you smoke ten sticks of cigarettes a day, which will cost you Rs 145 on average. That will total to Rs 1,015 per week since you won’t take an off on the weekends. The total amount is Rs 4,350 each month, totalling to Rs 52,200 a year. You thus might be able to buy the phone you have been eyeing on just by stopping smoking.

These are just examples. There might be so many ways we can adjust to save. We just need to understand the difference between need and want. Each time you look at something, you should ask this question: Do I need it or want it?

In the end, I want to quote from George Calson’s book ‘The Richest Man of Babylon’: “The first copper you save is the seed from which your tree of wealth shall grow.” 

My friend Asmita Pradhan and I run a room on Clubhouse called “Official Pandheri Guff” where we choose different topics and give the floor to the audience to put up their opinions. In one session, the topic was: “How far will you go for your friends?” In the discussion, a member of the audience reversed the question and said “I wish to share a story about how far my friends have gone for me. I was never a believer in friends forever, but after one incident, I feel I am blessed to have a couple of real good friends who stood by me through my most difficult time.” After that the entire conversation was about how grateful we all are to have great friends.

Everyone knows the basic principle of good friendship is being there for each other. Helping and supporting during tough times. Being partners in crime. We all have done stupid and unbelievable things for our friends. Having stated the basic principle of friendship, I wish to draw no lines on who can be a friend. It could be your sibling who you grow up with and share most of your time with, it could be Peter Parker next door who looks after Mary Jane as a friend, or it could be your mentor who listens and believes in you when you give up on yourself and start self-doubting and pitying.

I called up a friend early in the morning and asked him to define friendship for me as I was writing something along those lines. And he very simply gave me a one- liner, “Friendship is a strong ship made by friends to sail together in the course of life.”

It takes time to build any relationship. Friendship also takes its sweet time to mature and strengthen. When we meet someone, the person is only an idea. And it happens to be a great one-dimensional idea. But we need to understand that people are not two-, three-, or four- but multidimensional and some dimensions may not be desirable. The different sides could be their flaws and imperfections. Sometimes due to the imperfections the idea might lose its value, but other times people accept those imperfections and move ahead together.

There are a lot of discussions about how friendship works differently with people of different genders. For men, friendship might be defined differently to how women define it and vice-versa. In spite of that, friendship can grow beautifully and platonically between two different genders. Personally for me, friendship is never binary. I have friends from different shades of the spectrum.

In the process of appreciating and showing gratitude towards the presence of a true friend, most of the time, the attribute everyone points out is the patience to listen. That might entail venting about your toxic relationship, a controlling boss, or not-so-understanding parents—we all need that one friend or set of friends who will listen to the entire thing without passing any judgement. In my opinion, we all want someone to listen to our stories. Stories of achievement, failures, heartbreaks; gossip, backbiting and everything that goes in our lives. 

Sometimes we seek validation for some decisions we make. If you know your friend/s closely, you might not get the answer you seek. But you still know they will give the answers which will be the truth or the right thing to do. If you look around, your true friend will be brutally honest, tell you the truth and will take care of you after you get hurt by their words.

Friendship might be differently handled and built over the years. A friend should understand and know how to support unconditionally even if it means being there just to hear you for hours without saying anything or being the partner they need to sort out things. 

If you have one friend you are lucky, if you have a set of friends you are blessed. As for me, to say I am blessed would be an understatement: the four decades of my life have earned me a beautiful set of good friends. I consider them a family that I chose. I have practiced the art of saying “No” for things that go against my nature. Despite that, for a few of my friends, I might not murder anyone, but I will surely get the shovel to dig the hole. 

I was five-years-old when I met Rover—a mongrel I picked outside my house in New Road— for the first time. Beige in color and with the most adorable black nose. He did not come with a name tag but I named it after our Land Rover. After a couple of days, my uncle, who didn’t want a dog in the house, took Rover to our factory. Rover died of food poisoning a couple of weeks later.

With time, my love for dogs has only grown. I talk to dogs, be it at my friend’s place or on the street. I have had five dogs of my own till date: Rover, Shimpu, Zimbu, Pasa Precious, all now resting in peace, and Ba:la Princess, who lives with me right now. All through my life, the veterinarians have had issues with how I pamper and spoil my dogs. Dr. Pranav Joshi from Vet for Pets Clinic warned me that I was not only allowing Ba:la Princess to get on my head but also letting her do jumping jacks. That said, he appreciates how I love her like my own daughter. Dr. Joshi keeps repeating a mantra to all his dog owners. If you don’t have three things, don’t get a dog: money, time and space.

By money, I don’t mean you should have enough to purchase a St Bernard or a Rottweiler. When we bring a pooch home, it comes with an expense. Even if you are a vegetarian, let’s accept that dogs need a large portion of meat in their diet, after all, they are pure carnivores. If you have a big dog, their basic food intake is equivalent to that of three adult humans. An adult German Shepard or a Labrador Retriever needs 300-500 grams of meat a day. It is a big misconception that dogs like bones. Chewing a bone is an activity and they do it to alleviate boredom and to satisfy the innate urge to chew. They need toys to keep themselves busy and like toddlers they also get easily bored with their toys. Bones definitely are a good option but not the only one. 

If you have noticed a dog eat, they do not chew but swallow the food. They do the same with bones mixed with their food. Those bones can get stuck in their intestines and might rupture organs. A good vet will recommend you avoid giving bones, especially chicken bones, to your dogs as they have sharp ends. It will be unfair to feed your dogs just leftovers from your kitchen, even though it is a regular practice in Nepal. You need to have a good budget to give a good life to your four-legged companion. We don’t compromise with the needs of our children, do we?

Dogs are from the wolf family. They live and move in packs. That is why when dogs are domesticated they believe the family they are living with is their pack. So when they are left alone they suffer from separation anxiety. A lot of times we hear people complain about dog’s destructive behavior when left alone, and their relative calmness when they see their family. As we keep dogs for companionship, it is also vice-versa. They too need companions. In Kathmandu, I see people spend thousands to buy a dog as a status symbol and later it spends 99 percent of its time with the caretaker or helper.

When we speak of space, we talk about two spaces. The first is the space where a dog can run, play and exercise. When they consume a large amount of meat protein, they need to burn it. So the larger the dog, the more space you need to have for them to exercise. I understand the sentiment and desire to keep a big dog in an apartment, but then you need to make it sweat and exercise. There should be a committed time you make for your dog. They need to walk or run to burn the energy or else they are again extremely destructive. A tired dog is a disciplined dog. 

The second kind of space is the space to poop. The streets outside your house is not a place for your pooch to poop. It is a pretty normal practice in Nepal to let the dog outside on the streets in the morning or at night for their disposal and pretend you didn’t see them poop. There should be a proper arrangement of their daily disposals. The Kathmandu Metropolitan City is coming up with a strict rule to control such behaviors and is planning to register dogs in ward offices. How effective it is going to be, only time will tell.

I strongly believe having a dog is the best thing that can happen to me. They understand my vibes, they love me unconditionally, they are my antidepressants and they are always around. Their memory is worse than a goldfish’s. I yell at Ba:la Princess for five minutes and send her out of the room. Ten seconds later I call her and she is back wagging her tail and in love with me like never before. Lastly, I try not to be too judgmental about people, but if they say they don't like dogs I question their existence. I don’t trust a person if dogs don’t trust them.

The social media algorithm is scary and fascinating at the same time. Effortlessly it keeps on providing us feeds evaluating our past posts, actions and search. If you observe your Youtube list, Twitter timeline or Pinterest search, to name a few, the feed keeps giving you exactly what you prefer to watch or interact with.

Once I tried to search for a Ted Talk on happiness and ever since I have been flooded with motivational speeches from all kinds of outlets. Then, one day, a friend of mine used my phone to search for some relationship coach and his recommendation on how to build a great relationship with your guy. Ever since I have been getting doses of  “What a guy likes in a woman” to “3 things not to do to chase a man”.

Not even two decades ago we never had this sort of option. I remember back in the 90s when we were in school, fashion and lifestyle magazines like Cosmopolitan, Elle and Femina used to have a quiz column where you were asked 7-10 questions and on that basis they would draw conclusions about the topic.

The topic varied from “What kind of person are you?”, “ What kind of man should you date?”, “How healthy is your relationship?”, “Are you an introvert or an extrovert?”, and so on and so forth. There were results on the basis of points you scored, or there were A-B-C-D defined replies. I remember seniors and also girls from my batch getting together with their pencils and notebooks during lunch to try out these quizzes. The magazines were sneaked inside the school “illegally.”

But at present, finding thousands of such expert quizzes and suggestions is only a google away. I won’t lie, there were times when I was dating and when there came some hiccups, I tried listening to expert advice online, especially on YouTube. (According to a recent survey, 57 percent of Nepal’s internet users regularly visit the video channel.) One out of 10 suggestions may have worked. I still say it may have, or it could be purely coincidental.

For the past two weeks I have intentionally searched for a few such videos again for research. I shouldn’t be surprised but I am at the number of views these videos have on Youtube (from hundreds of thousands to millions). There were dozens of comments in the videos as well. There are actually people who take these things seriously and follow them. Makes me question if it really works.

Nothing in life comes with a guarantee card except that we are born, we will grow old and we will eventually die. Except that, we all need to explore, test and taste. What might work for those 100,000 people might or might not work for us. Maybe the man/woman you are currently dating does not have any of the characteristics these opinions are based on.

A lot of times we search these videos when we are in dire need of solace. If you notice, these videos are made with a lot of psychological tricks. I can assure you, you will agree with 90 percent of what they are saying because they say things you want to listen to, at that exact distressing moment.

I do partially agree with a few things they say because they are based on human behavior as well. We all react to certain things in similar ways. We all have the same emotions but we act differently in different situations. The boiling and cooling points vary from person to person. Just because a relationship coach in some social media site tells you that you need to be more outgoing and be more reachable when in real life you are an extreme introvert, you might pretend to be someone who you are not, just to save that relationship. The question is, for how long?

A very interesting example right now is a lot of videos that tell us that “Distance makes the heart grow fonder”. It might have worked in the 1980s and 1990s with the magazine quizzes. But right now after the pandemic, what everyone needs is constant physical presence and human touch. We crave for a big rib-cracking bear hug and to meet people who are dear to us. People have stopped waiting for the right time to communicate feelings or grievances because we all have felt the uncertainty of life due to the pandemic.

Like the social media apps we need to upgrade ourselves to the choices we make. If you want to call someone just call and talk—it won’t make you less important or desperate. If you want to say sorry and mend your relationship, go ahead with that too. There is only one rule and that is you want to handle it without any regrets. Rest will fall in place eventually.

Social media platforms are extremely alluring. You join one and a Pandora’s box is opened for you. The more you explore, the more you get into the quagmire. If you have a smartphone, chances are, 80 percent of your application space is taken up by social media apps and games. For a very long time, I have refused to join one social media app i.e TikTok. Previously known as Musical.ly, it was purchased by BetaDance Technology Co. in 2017 and rebranded as TikTok in 2018 with the purpose of monopolizing the video social. In TikTok you can post short form videos (15-60 second) basically used for infotainment (Information + Entertainment).

Resisting the app was easy-peasy until the first pandemic lockdown. I exhausted myself by watching a lot of movies/series, knit till my neck started swearing back at me, and cooked-posted on social media until my friends started disowning me for not inviting them. TikTok came as my last resort to survive in the lockdown. It started off with scout-outing the app for people I know and I ended up using that app for hours.

I found that videos are bombarded at you, one after another, from all across the world. The algorithm makes sure you get similar kinds of videos, on the basis of your search and the videos you have watched (To understand how the algorithm works a documentary named Social Dilemma on Netflix is highly recommended).

On average I was spending 3-4 hours a day watching videos. I accept it, it is highly entertaining and a great time-pass. It is a collection of amazing dance videos, DIY hacks, comedy skits, transition videos, singing, product reviews, etc., etc. It is a big pool of what you want to watch. As the videos are only upto 60 seconds, there is not a moment to get bored.

One thing that stole my heart is the active participation of the queer community who are using TikTok to showcase their talents. Some of them are using it to come out and some for awareness on LGBTQIA++ issues.

But like other social media, TikTok is not free from trolls or cyber bullies. Using fake handles or even from their personal handles people are cyber bullying. In the name of “commenting” people are getting away with body shaming, homophobia, racism and sexism. As most of the users do not know the technicality of how to handle such things, you block them. Another option is to make one more video and call them out. This is a never ending loop and it is high time people start educating themselves on the ethics of social media.

I always had a strong reservation about giving electronic gadgets to children. Last year, due to the pandemic and lockdown, when the schools in Nepal went online, my concern about exposure of unsupervised children online grew to an alarming level. A lot of parents had to give their latest cellphone to the kids; some went further by buying a new one, just so that the kids could have uninterrupted classes. But with a smart phone in their hands, we are exposing them to the realm of the cyber world.

Even in TikTok I see a lot of accounts made by children or young adults without adult supervision. There were few videos where young kids were dancing to an English song whose meaning was extremely explicit and sexual. Even for me to see young adults dance to such songs is pretty alarming but for a cyber predator, it is a box of cheesecake. This is the content they look for. Such contents are downloaded and passed on to adult sites.

It is frightening to see parents or adults post videos of their children to get attention and klout. Allowing young girls to twerk (not realizing what exactly it is) to Munni Badnam or Sheela ki Jawani or some explicit hip hop song online is to expose them to not only cyber predators but also to the pedophile community.

It is important to understand the pros and cons of the social media that we are using everyday. Last week, a compromising Clubhouse voice recording of a young girl was shared on TikTok. It was a “mere” dare in one of the rooms, recorded by a listener and uploaded on TikTok. It is high time we give the right values to our children regarding social media. One thing is for sure: we cannot stop this development and dependency but what we can do is make sure our kids know the difference between what to post and what not to.

These things should be taught at home and in school. Adults need to take out time to educate themselves about the risks of content posting on cyberspace. The Internet is humongous and addictive and it can hold unlimited information forever: once on the internet, always on the internet. This is not something to be taken lightly.

Time and again, some ‘kanda’ (incident) brews up on Nepali social media. This week, someone with a pseudonym wrote a long post on Facebook about her abusive relationship. The post was full of heart-wrenching incidents she suffered in the past one year. There was a back and forth response from both the involved parties. 

The accused man accepted that the allegations were true to an extent, but he then blamed the woman for provoking him. Surprisingly and not so surprisingly, the whole community started offering their own verdict on the case. One common statement from male members who were judging the woman, “Why now?” or, “Why was she still in the relationship even after the first incident?”

This is a straight case of domestic violence where this woman was tortured, both physically and emotionally. Which made me think, why exactly do women stay in toxic relationships or abusive marriages? What could convince them psychologically and emotionally to be with a partner who constantly makes her life miserable?

When I asked a divorcee friend about this, referencing her abusive failed marriage, she said that as her father was extremely toxic, there was no male role model in her life. When she met this guy who claimed to love her, she thought she would never get someone better. And even when things went wrong, she constantly blamed herself for being a difficult person and for everything that was happening. 

Another reason she cited concerned children. Women are the nurturing gender and often, they feel that if the parents get divorced, the kid/s will suffer because of the shuffling between parents. They fear another parent’s absence might destroy the kid psychologically in the long run. They also consider the traumatization the kid/s have to go through living in this society where divorce/separation are still frowned upon.

When I asked the same question of other friends, they also pointed to the issue of financial dependence. Even in urban cities, many Nepali women decide to be homemakers and are financially dependent on their male counterparts. On the other hand, even if they are working, most of the time, the man is a bigger financial contributor to the family. This is how the society is shaped. Stepping out of that zone can be scary for women. So they compromise and stay in the marriage or relationship.

Another major factor we cannot ignore is how our societal beliefs are constructed. People not only look down on women who come out of a bad marriage but also on women who have a series of bad relationships. In this fear even the victims’ families convince them to stay and compromise. The family plays a vital role in the decision making of the women--to be or not to be in the toxic relationship. When families pull out from helping, the woman gets little or no support to make a decision. 

In an informal gathering at a friend’s place, one guest who was in a toxic relationship very light-heartedly said to a group of her friends, “You know girls why I don’t want to quit this relationship? Because I have already invested seven years training him to be with me. Now I don’t have the energy to train another man. In the end, they are all the same”.

Other guests were teasing and laughing but I couldn’t find any humor in it. Instead I found an exhausted individual who had given up on living. There might be many women who might relate to this story. Maybe you have a friend who is going through something similar or you could be that one. 

Interestingly, often, the male partners are very convincing. They vow not to repeat their mistake and to make things better. The reasons mentioned above play the devil’s advocate and as a safety measure, women decide to give it one more shot, and yet another… until they end up with severe depression.

Regardless of how many excuses and reasons we discuss, physical violence of any sort is unacceptable. And after that when a person musters the courage to come out of the toxicity, asking questions and giving unsolicited advice to go to the court and take legal action doesn’t make you a messiah. 

Sometimes they are so mind-screwed due to trauma and depression, the decision they take might be extreme or inconsistent: from expressing rage on social media and again deleting it due to peer and family pressure to self-harming. It is high time we stop questioning the victim: “why?”, “why now?”, or “why didn’t you?”. The burden is already too much for them to take. If we cannot help, it is better to just keep quiet. Silence is also a response and in this case, a better one rather than needlessly butting in and making things worse.

The writer is a businessperson by profession, prefers to be called connoisseur of DIY and recycle, and is mother to a golden retriever named Ba:la Princess 

Over coffee, looking at sunrise in Nagarkot, my brother as usual made a savage comment, “One time I see you all nice and hanging out with a friend and next you are all cold and not talking to them, why are you so mean?” I took a sip of my coffee and replied, “I am not the Greek God Atlas to take the entire burden of the world on my back and walk. If people constantly give me negative vibe, I think I don’t want that friendship. I couldn’t choose a brother but I can choose my friends.”

At three different coffee meetings a colleague I was friends with kept on complaining about how her husband doesn’t look after her and her needs, how she doesn’t have friends, how mundane life is, the sacrifices she has made and lack of appreciated, and how my life is so full of excitements and events. At one point I couldn’t take it and asked her what is one thing she does to make a difference or to solve the problem. There was a surprised glare and no reply. I asked her if she expects me to intervene and solve her problems to which there was no reply as well. That day I realized how much we all love to complain and not do a thing to solve our problems. Maybe we enjoy playing victims and get attention.

After a few weeks I realized I was avoiding her. It was not intentional but my reflexes were that I didn’t want to be around people who keep acting miserable. My Grand Aunt once told me, you will be the company you keep, so girl, choose your friends wisely. It did not make sense when I was 11 but at 40 it makes all the sense in the world.

Psychologists say people impersonate the friends they keep. We pick words, behaviors, antics and values of our friends or people we are close with. So it is important to choose wisely. Our brains are mostly attracted to negative thoughts but there are ways to channelize them.

First and foremost, it is fine to avoid negative people. I don’t have a precise deifinition of negative but I mean anything that exhausts you or does not let you grow into a better person. It is absolutely okay to let it out of your system. Sometimes it could be a toxic relationship or marriage or just a friend who keeps complaining about everything and not doing anything about it. Your mental health is more important that anything and anyone else. People might find you rude or selfish for moving on, but trust me, this is for your own good.

Last year, when the world was first hit by Covid, people thought it was a hoax. Some considered it a biological weapon and some thought it was a conspiracy to control population. We stayed home, we tried to survive, thinking it would all be over. We all were looking for a chance to survive so that we could get back to normalcy, even if it would be a new normal. Life suddenly became more precious than anything else. Family and friends started becoming dearer. People staying home learned to cook, to bake, learned a new skill. Staying positive was difficult but not impossible.

But the second wave feels like a second fracture on your already plastered bone. People we know are getting infected faster than we thought, our loved ones are dying. We are all equally scared and feeling anxious. We still don’t have a choice but to hope and try to stay positive. We have to hold on to that little hope that we will survive this. For that, your mental health needs to be on constant check.

A few basic coping strategies then. Practice gratitude for all the good things around you. It could be a plate of decent meal, or a family that is annoying but healthy, alive and together with you. Calling your close friends and appreciating their presence in your life each day also helps instill positive thoughts in your mind. Above all, right now, cut yourself off from people who add negativity in your life. It could be a friend who shares unnecessary fake news on social media (block them, it is okay), a friend who keeps whining about not been able to go out, or a relative who only talks about death numbers in your WhatsApp group. These are things you can right now avoid for your mental peace.

Watch the sunrise or the sunset, read a good book, call at least one person you care about each day. Be that person people can draw positive energy from in this time of crisis. And a little selfishness makes this world a better place—by adding one positive person to it. I would say let us become selfish for a change.

“We should have taken you for the Lantang trek, you badly need to sweat a lot hahaha”, someone I am only acquainted with through work casually said over the phone. I must have met him maybe thrice in formal settings, so, I diplomatically asked him to mind his own business. I still regret not coming out more aggressively about that passive-aggressive body shaming.

In Nepal people do not realize or more often choose to ignore that commenting on someone’s physical attribute or color is wrong. After an incident at a local school, there is a lot of talk online about body shaming and its adverse effects on victims. It is thus important to understand why this has to stop at any cost.

In simple language, body shaming can be understood as the act of humiliating someone by mocking or critically commenting on their body shape, size or color. The question is why do we/they do it? A lot of times people have a certain frame and rule of thumb set by the society on how one should look. Otherwise you are considered “ ugly”, “inappropriate” or an “outcast”. It has become accepted practice to name a person after his/her physical appearance.

Swarna Tamrakar​, the author is a businessperson, prefers to be called connoisseur of DIY and recycle, and is mother to a golden retriever named Ba:la Princess

For example, if a woman is physically large people will call her “Moti, Dalli, Bhaisi, Hatti, or Gaida” or if they are dusky in complexion chances are they will be called “Kali, Andheri, or Koila”. This might sound cute once. But when she is constantly being called that in public, it affects her psyche.

Unfortunately body shaming is something that happens more in your own core circle. Family members constantly coax their kids to stop eating because if they are fat no one will like them. Girls are asked to use facial creams to whiten their skin tone to meet the social standards. The South Asian families are always worried about the girls’ physical attributes, again to avoid being singled out for the rest of their lives. The constant pressures from family, friends and society can have a devastating emotional impact on the girls.

Body shaming mostly starts at an early age at schools and family gatherings, resulting in the kid’s low self-esteem as they start being dissatisfied with their perceived body image set by society or media. This leads to psychological problems like social anxiety also known as social phobia (trouble talking to people, meeting new people and attending social gatherings), anorexia/bulimia (eating disorders characterized by food restriction, fear of gaining weight and strong desire to stay thin), bigorexia (can be referred as reverse anorexia or a body dysorphic disorder that triggers an idea that the body is too small or not muscular enough) as well as serious mental health issues.

It is a lifetime of trauma for the majority of sufferers. Some sink so deep in the trauma, suicide becomes their only way out. It might come as a shock that most people engage in body shaming because of their own insecurities and anger, which they like to vent out on someone else. In the young and adolescents, this is common when they cannot deal with conflicts with peers. Also, at times they are upset, annoyed or intimidated by someone and they don't know any other way than to belittle that person’s appearance.

Both the bullied and the bully need to go for counseling and take professional help. It will take time but the trauma can be healed. A lot of times confronting the bully helps tide over the psychological damage. It is fearsome for anyone to express their true feelings and become vulnerable but until and unless there is that venting out, they will continue to be damaged internally. Finally, the simplest thing we need to practice and the first step towards recovery is self-love and accepting yourself the way you are. After that what anyone says will be as important as a bicycle is to a fish.