Confessions of a Bikini Addict

The most wonderful gift my father gave me was to teach me how to swim. I was all of three when he took me to the clubhouse pool across our home,carried me out of the shallow waters and flung me into the deep end. Just like that. I overcame any fear of the water even before I understood it. And with it came my love for a good morning swim. This month’s issue of Vogue has on its cover a bevy of beauties in ivory bikinis; it is almost a summer harbinger. But has anyone noticed that the two-piece is as ubiquitous as Sania Mirza these days (who should just dump her cricketing cheat,get herself a bikini first and then a bikini-bod for some real feel-good)? Considering we are essentially a tropical nation and surrounded by seas for most of our borders,our attitude towards swimwear is oddly regressive. But courtesy of Hindi films where even the top-rung actresses are now showing off their fab-abs in two-pieces,the bikini refuses to remain at the back of our closets. Twenty years ago,Karisma Kapoor wore a maillot in her debut film — a hit movie — and regretted it soon after. Two years ago,her sister Kareena wore a bikini for a movie few people saw,but she pushed an entire populace into fitness and size-zero frenzy. As a teenager,I was the only one among my friends who owned a bikini. It was a brown string one with a tortoise-shell hoop holding together the triangular cuts as nothing else would. I never wore it outside of my bathroom.

The first time I wore a bikini to a swimming pool,I was at least 20. Nervous and shy,my 20s had me wearing one very few times,my derring-do extended to that incredibly puerile and impossibly uncomfortable tankini. My 30s has me swimming in nothing else but a bikini. The water feels divine as it is as close to being natural as you can get. But it’s the sense of liberation that’s exhilarating — you’ve abandoned all awkwardness and overcome,er,stage-fright. I don’t have the figure I did 10 years ago,but I’ve learned the grace to wear my pregnancy scars like proud war-wounds,each time reminding myself of the magic of childbirth.

You may be showing off your new Hermes maillot,but the power of a bikini is twice as nice. Yes,a few leery men may stare,but for all of five minutes. Your boyfriend won’t even notice your stretch-marks,he’ll be busy showing off his sexy gal. So what if you don’t have a bikini-friendly body as yet,rest assured this investment will have you get one.