Shark Tank India judge Namita Thapar recently revealed that she was body-shamed as a teenager. Speaking to author Chetan Bhagat in his talk show on YouTube, she said that till she was 21, Thapar had very low esteem and was bullied for being overweight and having facial hair.
“I was not like this when I was a kid. I was very overweight, I had a lot of facial hair and acne, I was body-shamed a lot as a teenager... and I used to feel very ugly," the Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals told Chetan Bhagat on his YouTube talk show Deeptalk.
"No guy looked at me, it was me looking at the guys and having crushes, let’s just say that. When you’re body-shamed like that as a teenager, that leaves a lot of scars... I had a lot of facial hair and acne, and there was a guy in my class who’d call me ‘the girl with the moustache’ in Marathi.”
Namita Thapar also opened up about the pressures she faced academically while growing up in a conservative Gujarati family.
"There were nine grand children in the house during summer vacations and the results would be declared during that time, eight of them would have ranked first and I ranked second which was fantastic but no one congratulated me," she shared. "The atmosphere in the house was like someone's died then the whole house would like go into mourning."
Thapar added that the family would then analyse the difference between her marks and the student in her class who ranked first and then prepare an action plan on how she could do better and top the class during the next exams.
"The goal of sharing my personal stories is to demonstrate how all of us are flawed and need to find the inner strength to love ourselves and be forgiving to ourselves as we continue slipping and failing," the Shark Tank India judge said.
Read more: Namita Thapar says 'working long hours, no time for family' is no badge of honour
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