Sucker Punch: Essays

by Scaachi Koul

Day after day, my mother would call, and request something she never really had before. “I need you to eat,” she said. “Eat whatever you can. Make sure you eat a few times a day. Eat anything you want. As long as you eat.” It was the first time in my life that I took her advice without even thinking about it. I ate and ate and ate. I never had an appetite, and could only pretend food was still enjoyable, but I was relentless in taking her guidance. I ate rice bowls and noodles and dumplings and dosa and chips and crudités and croissants and cookies. If I had a thought about food, it entered me within moments. I never purged; I let my body swell and ache so I could relearn how to stop when I needed to stop. I let hunger fill me to the brink and then spoke to it with spring rolls crushed in two bites. My mother started calling me even more, focused on the same question: “Did you eat?” Yes, I’d tell her. I ate plenty. I could almost hear her blood pressure go back down to a normal range. I loved those calls. The food was sometimes healthy, more often not, but it was something. I’d text her pictures of empty takeout containers and she’d always text back, immediately, “Good.” I used to protest when she’d call and ask what I had for lunch—“Mom, it’s 5:25”—but now I rushed to answer the phone so I could hear her give me permission. “Did you eat?” she’d say. “You have to eat. Eat everything. Eat whatever you want. Eat now.”