#scruf102: an anatomy of bras (from a different time)
i wrote this anatomy of bras told in two parts in 2016, or maybe sometime even before.
Men and unhooking bras
There are so many aspects to the sensory garment that a bra is. Not wearing it defies the regime more than wearing it.
It was a muggy July night when I had little clue that I was to encounter the man who could unhook my bra at once!
In one go, with the play of his forefinger and thumb he squeezed his hand inside my crisp cotton top, stiff with starch and unhooked the garment.
Saggy breasts were never a problem inside the hostel but before mama, they posed a threat
Synergy
Co-habitation
Gesticulation
Control
Misogyny
Charm
Swivel
Discern
Deceit
Concentrate
Distract
My first one was for 60 rupees – a sports bra
Told by class six class-teacher who we called Maggi for her curly hair and a peculiar shrill pitched voice
“You are all growing up, no more vests and camisoles now! Get your mothers to buy you sports bras if you’re thing and actual bras of your size is available”
I waited for ma to return from office and reported obediently what Mrs. Maggi had wanted of me.
We went bra shopping later that evening. It was tedious and a pain for my mother.
For me it was a delight – stepping in to the unclad shop where an elderly lady spread a variety of bras before maa and me.
I, of course, did not get to call the shots. Maa swiftly picked up two sports bras cheap yet efficient in keeping my bosom that were yet to sprout.
Before that I remember being told stories about buxom busts being clad in bras. These stories were told to me with the narrator’s one hand over my tutu. Whispering into my ears – “Shilpa is a good 36, Barkha is a lakhpati.”
I was in the fifth standard and had quite late in life been bought my first stuffed toy that I had named Goofy.
My story-teller’s fixation over breasts and my body’s lack of them made me self-conscious. More self-conscious than a nineteen year old IITian trying to push his fingers into the small tutu of his eight-year-old cousin.
The fury at the story-teller’s pre-occupation with breast made me want to have them. Own them – of course without any inkling of the biology behind them.
I walked back to my (shared) room, and took out Goofy from inside the Godrej Almira.
I was adept at using scissors. Plunged the pair into it. Goofy was a cheap buy and hence stuffed with synthetic cotton. The light kind. The mass of cotton I devoured from Goofy’s non-living innards, I put it inside my cheap brown velvet top.
Maa had got that top for me from one her official visits to Agra.
Standing before the mirror, I pushed and shaped the cotton to make it look like I almost has breasts. A smile shone on my face. Ear-to-ear.
I ran to the verandah, shouted the story-teller’s name out loud and presented to him in all my glory the fake breasts I came to own.
He smiled at me from up there. He was happy. I was happy.
I had welcomed the sports bra into my life with arms wide open and had expected things to turn around from then on. But puberty is known for not being too kind on anybody.
I didn’t get breasts big enough to draw the boy’s attention. The tell-tale pimples too didn’t leaf out. I was short and largely ignored till the last term of class 12.
Sexy bras
Push-up bras
Plus size bras
Starpless bras
Bras being sold on roadsides
Bras being sold behind taut glass shielded stores
Take a walk around the mall close to your office pr the hyper-local market in the dingy corners of the country’s capital. You’ll find bras.
Sold by men, women, by sons and daughters of women who wore bras, uncomfortably – without giving it a thought
The bra wearer
The girl in your dorm has a date later this week; she wants a sultry bra to nail the night
The boy she wants to wear it in front of – he squirms at home each time he sees a bra dangling from the clothes line
He cannot tell his date, he once tried a bra on – his elder sister’s
Without any one’s knowledge – dimmed the lights of the mother’s room, got the bra out and wore it on his flat bare chest
He saw himself in the mirror and touched his shoulder
Crammed his neck and planted a soft peck there
He touched the curves of the soft-padded bra
Felt his fingertips on his washed chest
In the place of a cleavage there was a barren flushed skin
His nails, chipped off from the previous night when he saw the sister undress
She thought he was asleep, while he was peeking from inside the quilt
His affected gaze fell on the uneven skin on the sister’s back,
Pimpled and marred with scars she had never cared to cover up
His eyes saw the lines the bra had left on her back
The hooks left their imprint on her tender membrane
Suddenly he remembered the woman who had died due to excessive bleeding after one of the hooks entered her skin
Shuddered, he wanted to get up, pick the bra up and cease it in his grip
He cringed at the thought of something happening to his mother or sister lest they wore the bra for a long duration
That noon when no one was home, curious as he was, he picked up the bra
Adorned his barren chest with the garment, his frail limbs hanging out from the sides
He was not too curious now
He wanted to wear it for as long as he could
The way the bra held his flat chest tight, he liked how the bra made a part of his body feel more precious to him
He felt the satin rose pink sheet
A tender tremble ran down his lower lip
He closed his eyes,
“If only…”