The most dreaded piece of clothing for any woman is the two piece string bikini. It’s that barely there lycra material that exposes everything. Any other piece of clothing and you can hide your slightly protruding pooch, all those stretch marks on your bum, the cellulite creeping up your thighs but not when it comes to the Bikini. This non-existent item of fashion doesn’t let you hide anything.

Its bare , it’s there and one has to be brave enough to embrace it.

Women go through months long rituals to get in shape; to wear that perfect bikini they spend  a few months looking for and a lot of dough to get it. It’s a planned execution, with an excel power point work schedule. Am I embellishing ? nope

Lets take my example. The first time I decided I wanted to wear a bikini was when I was 20 and I was going to Thailand on a beach holiday. I started my diet a year before. I went off carbs, I ran around my colony like a headless chicken. I refused to eat out and gave up everything I loved and adored. It was a lot of hard work, but I got there. I wore my two piece with pride, but was soon bombarded with stretch marks, and cellulite. Those don’t go. I chickened out and wore a pair of denim shorts with the bikini. But my family friends were really cool and chilled , so they made me take them off and flaunt my body that I had really worked hard on.

Was I uncomfortable, yes!

I felt exposed, I thought people were staring and I was being mocked behind my back, the worse kind of mocking. But nothing like that happened. No one cared about my stretch marks, or that I had bumps on my bum.

My next tryst with the bikini was at age of 26. This time the destination was Turkey and I was going to be frolicking on the Mediterranean beaches. I only wear bikinis in foreign countries. I talk a big game, but I too refrain from unwanted comments and glances in my very own country India.

So back to Turkey !! Same ritual, only this time, I refused to spend money on another overtly priced bikini. I wore my old ones. But by the time I reached the white sandy beaches, I had already spend 7 days in Turkey, and gorged and gorged like no ones business. I am on a holiday, I have spent money to be on a holiday. I am going to enjoy. The bulge was out, but when you are in a foreign country, and nobody knows you and you know nobody, you are less intimidated . Wearing a bikini is a big deal only in India and other conservative countries, for Europeans or Americans it’s another piece of clothing. They don’t dread it, they don’t kill themselves to fit into the perfect body type for a bikini. If they want a bikini body, they just wear one. Women of all ages will be in a two piece. They wear it with pride and they wear it with confidence.

My final and latest tryst with the bikini was this last January when I went to Srilanka. Only this time, I didn’t not have the time to diet, or get in shape. I was extremely busy through out the year and I was eating whatever I felt like but was still adamant on wearing a two piece. I bought this lovely pair from Pretty Secrets off Myntra. They fit perfectly. Usually buying a bikini off the internet can be very risky, because no way can you return that, but luckily it fit and was perfect and not that damaging to the pocket.

I don’t know whether it’s the older and wiser syndrome. At 28, I really didn’t care about my stretch marks or my cellulite, or that I am top heavy or my lower pooch is sticking out. I didn’t care anymore. I was at a beach and I was going to wear a bikini. For the first time, it didn’t scare me. In fact wearing it liberated me. I felt confident accepting my own body , loving my own body the way it is meant to be. I realised I gave this flimsy piece of clothing too much power. Power it didn’t deserve.

I took  so many pictures in a bikini, some good , same bad, but all great.

Yes, I am fit. I work out and I eat clean. But I still judge my body.

I got my first stretch marks when I was 12. Puberty wasn’t very kind to me. I spent most of my teenage years, covering and concealing . At 28 I realised I can’t get rid of them, and that’s absolutely fine. Do they still make me conscious, yes but once you accept them they hold no power over you.

If you want to wear a bikini just wear it. Don’t starve yourself, don’t kill yourself over it. Yes people will make comments and judge and say a few nasty things.

People talk, let them.

It’s not about you , it more about them

And that’s a fact.

Your body is flawed and there is beauty in flaws.

Yogasini