Recovery in the Name of Chardi Kala
I don’t love you anymore.
After months of concealing you like a secret, it felt like someone shouted your name across a train station, echoing through the intercom, reverberating in my bones. Anorexia. My heart pounded in rhythm with the clattering of wheels on track joints. Why did my doctor know your name?
You had already infiltrated every part of me. You had made yourself at home, shaping the way I viewed my body, my mind, and my worth. You became the ruler I measured myself against—and I always came up short. Drained as I was by a seemingly invisible killer, the tests at my desk became easier than the ones at the dinner table. And I failed them quietly, regularly.
The pillar of my self-worth crumbled under your weight, leaving me with pieces of regret and disgust. Little by little, you chipped away at me until all I saw in the mirror were flaws and imperfections. My reflection became a battleground, as my thoughts became your arsenal. No grade, no matter how high, was ever enough.
On December 29, 2020, you were finally discovered after months of doctors refusing to believe that such an illness could be presented in a girl of a minority background. You were real. You had a name. And you had overstayed your welcome.
My teammates would warm up under the winter sky at the field for track practice. I would go to my third doctor’s visit of the month, trying to explain feelings I hadn’t even begun to understand. I was tired—tired of fighting a silent war I didn’t choose, tired of trying to prove that pain doesn’t always look the way medicine was taught to recognize it.
Being a Sikh Indian-Cuban American did not make matters easier. My identity was already a balancing act. I was raised by my Punjabi grandmother, a woman whose love was measured in spoonfuls. She floated around the kitchen in her green salwar kameez, stirring mutter paneer as the scent of cumin and coriander wafted through our home.
The aroma of her cooking evoked a rush of impatience within the household. “¡Qué rico!” my dad would exclaim over the phone to his mother in Cuba, his voice filled with joy awaiting my grandmother’s signature meal. Ours was a household stitched together with love, language, and food. In the throes of my eating disorder, I frequently remembered these moments. I remembered our weekly trips to the gurdwara, the local Sikh temple, and the langar that fed all who entered. I remembered the power food held in bringing people together.
But food, in both Indian and Cuban culture, comes with more than flavor—it comes with expectation.
I grew up around women who critiqued their bodies before finishing a meal. In family gatherings, relatives tossed around comments about weight as if they were discussing the weather. These remarks didn’t come from cruelty but from cultural norms that equated thinness with self-control, beauty, and success. And I internalized every word.
The media I consumed tended to reinforce the same message. Bollywood films and telenovelas plastered screens with fair-skinned, slender women as the epitome of desirability. Somewhere between the pressure to succeed academically and my innate perfectionist mindset, you—my eating disorder—slipped in like a thief, convincing me that control was the key to confidence and that shrinking was the path to strength. But here’s what I didn’t know then: control isn’t the same as peace. And shrinking doesn’t lead to genuine happiness.
The turning point didn’t come all at once. Recovery wasn’t linear. It was more like an unsteady climb out of a well, sometimes slipping, sometimes soaring. I had to relearn everything—how to listen to my body and recognize hunger not just as a physical cue but as a metaphor—hunger for connection, love, and self-acceptance.
About a year after I began healing, I attended the gurdwara once again. I stood from my cross-legged position during Ardas with my hands intertwined in front of my chest. I looked around and saw not judgment, but warmth. I smiled at the little girl holding onto her mother’s shawl during our prayer. Coming to an end, the congregation repeated, “Nanak Naam Chardi Kala, tere bhane sarbat da bhala,” requesting peace and the well-being of humanity. Chardi Kala—an outlook on life during times of turmoil when resilience is tested. Not false optimism, but a quiet strength. A belief that even in suffering, there’s growth. That light threads itself through cracks we thought would break us.
That’s what recovery became for me: Chardi Kala. A perspective shift. A spiritual unfolding.
I gained a newfound desire for perfection in the journey rather than in the outcome. I began exploring whether I could trust myself to be myself. I realized I yearn for friends, not just people to pose with. I discovered a love for learning behind my desire for academic validation. I reclaimed my passion for dancing instead of simply burning calories. Movement, rhythm, joy—I found all of it again. This time, for me. I recognized that my worth is not determined by a number on a scale, exam, or clock as I cross the finish line. I define myself by how I show up for myself and others. I define myself by the fullness of my laughter, the depth of my friendships, and the courage it takes to find strength in darkness. I began to embody Chardi Kala.
On December 29, 2020, I wish I could’ve told myself that you, my eating disorder, were incapable of keeping me as your prisoner. I’d begin to apply the principles of neuroplasticity and reclaim my life free from the shackles of your cruel internal voice. I wish I could’ve known that this moment would push me closer to finding my preordained purpose, and I’d have the strength to work through the pain and emerge a better person. Ironically, anorexia gave me a lens to see the world in ways many people never had the privilege of seeing. As I came to know my body, I took it back with each project of advocacy I started. I now appreciate the freedom that recovery has given me—freedom from diet culture, unrealistic standards of beauty, and perfectionism.
I’d tell that 14-year-old girl in a printed patient gown that everything would be okay.
Because three years later, I don’t love you anymore.
And I never will again.
