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IFFI 2023: Vidya’s Thought on Breaking the Stereotype
The National Award-winning actress, Vidya Balan spoke about her weight and how she presented her body without complaining about it throughout the peak of her career during a master class at the 54th International Film Festival of India in Goa. The actress has broken the glass ceiling in many different ways more than once whenever she played any of her roles in any movie struggled with her body issues and turned all the negative impacts into positivity. The actress never holds herself back, instead, she continues flaunting her body.
Back in time, there was an era when rather than her work her physical appearance created more buzz. The actress makes sure that she keeps those incidents safe as an important chapter of her life which she can proudly look back on and inspire many other women who are getting targeted every day continuously for their body weight and physical appearance.
While sharing a conversation with Vani Tripathi Tikoo, an actor and politician by profession during the masterclass of the 54th IFFA at Goa, the actress Vidya Balan said, “I had realized I was only sending hate towards my body. I was constantly saying it, ‘You are not what I want you to be’. And therefore, I was constantly falling sick. I started working with a healer 12 years ago and I realized that you are abusing the very thing that’s keeping you alive.”
The very talented actress currently aged 44 also remembers the immediate moment when she started believing in herself and her body. She also expresses her gratitude by recalling the time when she started being extremely “thankful” towards her own “body and breath” which keeps her alive every second and every day. The actress how she senses good about her shape, and how she deals with those particular days when her body does not respond like a usual day. According to her, every day is a new day, so what matters is to feel good about yourself.
She added, “It has been a game-changer since then, because today, however, I wake up in the morning, I feel good about myself, and on days I don’t, I then tell myself, ‘It’s okay, tomorrow will be a new day. Let me live with what I am feeling today. Sometimes, your body also expresses your emotions whether you feel tired, angry, jealous, grateful, hurt, tearful, or whatever, but that doesn’t make you smaller. I had started to feel small in my bigness, and that’s ridiculous. It was almost like I was cowering.”
There is one simple fact that always draws the attention of the actress she never forgets to be grateful to god, always and every day for being herself, and how her size never being an issue even when she was facing some extreme situations like standing in front of the cameras. The actress has a huge love and respect for cameras, and she always hopes that if she believes herself the camera will even love her back.
“My size has never mattered to me when I face the camera. I love the camera so much I trust it so much that I believe that it will always love me back.”
Just like a piece of advice, which most females need these days who stop and hold themselves back by thinking about how our society is going to judge them, Vidya addressed, “Forget about how they are judged, how do they judge themselves is important. When you look into the mirror, how you feel? And if you don’t feel good, it’s okay. We are humans and we have good and bad days, but fake it till you make it. Tell yourself that I love and accept myself, a little more everyday, and it really works. We women have allowed our bodies to form such a large part of our identities.”
The actress also stated that whatever anyone wants to do with our body can be affected both ways, it may bring honor and shame to our family at the same time. Vidya also believes that it is very normal and obvious that people can destroy our self-confidence within a blink by commenting our the shape and size of the body, which is very definite as well. She also elaborated on how we feel unworthy and find ourselves undesirable at the very moment when we put on some weight and this is the ultimate time when we should break the glass ceiling, feel good about ourselves, and believe that we definitely deserve slightly more than this.
According to her, it is not at all acceptable to make yourself less because the moral of the story it is our body that makes us alive every moment and should be praised at any cost. Vidya also said that she learned this a few years back after dealing with her own struggles, which the audiences are very familiar with and who have seen her throughout all the phases of her life.
