Melvin Durai
Fat-shaming is generally frowned upon. Most people refrain from making fun of overweight people, even if the British tabloids are fond of publishing photos of celebrities who aren’t as svelte as they once were. While many people can control their weight, others struggle to do so. Some are genetically predisposed to be overweight. That’s partly why there’s a body positivity movement, promoting a positive view of all bodies, regardless of size, shape, skin tone, gender, and physical abilities. Body positivity isn’t just for humans. Dogs want to be positive about their bodies too. How else to explain the recent fat-dog competition in Delhi? The contest was started by a Delhi University journalism student who wants to remain anonymous. She had been operating an Instagram account called Fat Dogs of Delhi, posting photos of corpulent pooches she had come across around the city. Since the dogs were out in public, she didn’t need to get their permission to take their photos and post them online. As of this writing, none of the dogs have hired lawyers and threatened to sue.
After some of her Instagram followers shared photos of fat dogs they had spotted, the student decided to launch The Delhi Fat-Dog Competition, with a website where people could vote for their favourite fat dog. It was so popular that her followers ballooned from 1,500 to about 100,000. The website included a dog map, so people could even visit the dogs before casting their vote. After all, before you vote for your favourite dog, you prob ably want to make sure that it’s a “good boy” or “good girl.” Sixty-four dogs were entered in the competition, whether they liked it or not. Some of the dogs did not belong to a particular person, but were community dogs, living on the street and relying on the generosity of residents and shopkeepers for food. Being a community dog has its perks. Mr. Desai may see the anguished “I’m so hungry” look on your face and give you a chapati, not realising that Mrs. Verma has just given you chicken bones, not realising that Mr. Kumar gave you some bread. By mid-afternoon, you are so stuffed, you can barely move, not even to get away from the woman who’s taking your photo for a contest.
The winning dog was named Gola, aka Kelab, aka Rajpal Singh. When you’re a street dog, you sometimes have more aliases than a bandit, which works in your favour. “Did you feed Gola today?” Mr. Desai asks, and Mrs. Verma replies, “No, I only fed Kelab.” Out of 94,000 votes cast in the contest, Gola received almost 67,000. It was a landslide victory that most politicians can only dream of. But unfortunately, Gola did not get to enjoy his 15 minutes of fame, passing away before the contest was over. That prompted one Instagram user to offer a suggestion to the contest organiser: “A competition for who’s the fattest might instigate some people to deliberately provide unhealthy diets to the dogs to make them fat. How about voting dogs based on a fat-to-fit journey from next year?” That is a good suggestion, but I’m not sure how many dogs would be willing to get in shape for Fit Dogs of Delhi. I asked my dog, Lulu, whether she’d like to enter a fat-dog or fit-dog contest, and she gave me a look that said, “Whichever one involves more eating.” I was a little surprised and asked, “What about your health?” She glared at me with disdain, as if to say, “My health? What about your health? Aren’t you concerned about your health when you’re pigging out on pizza?”
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