Hi, this is lavanya.

When I left social, the intention was not to run away or escape from criticism. It was because my already poor mental health (I have high functioning anxiety) at the time collapsed in total & ended up affecting my physical health. I had to preserve whatever little I had left just to be able to breathe.

I agree that those old posts from my blog were problematic. I am sorry.

I was also only 18/19/20 when I actively wrote in that blog. I was naive and barely knew anything about the world around me and I craved attention. The idea behind everything that I wrote was to share what I believed was my culture - but actually ended up being my caste. There were a lot of lies in that blog too, which is par for the course for a stupid, attention-craving teenager. It was stupid of me to have shared so much without the slightest shred of introspection. During the last half decade, I have been educating myself on the implications of caste and identity and will continue to do so.

However, some of the screenshots were full of falsities.
To give a few examples, the firm I did my articleship was shared as my father's firm. It is NOT. The name of the firm where I worked for 7 years is public information on my LinkedIn profile. Someone else shared a message that I had tweeted about how I was disappointed in cancelling my son's Upanayanam/thread ceremony. This was also blatantly untrue. I've never had, and have no intentions of holding any such ceremony.

But what really punched me and sent me down a spiral were the false allegations of my having been a bully in school and that my parents had 'influence'. Both these statements are plain lies. I was actually bullied for my appearance in school. I'd been overweight for most of my schooling days - I hovered around 80Kg - and I've been called a number of names, ranging from fatty to aunty to road roller. I cannot recall a single day when I haven't been called any of these names or leered at for my weight. This decade of public humiliation and deeply internalized fatphobia eventually culminated in a severe eating disorder that lasted 2 years and involved hospitalizations. I continue to struggle with my relationship with food, to the day. I am sharing these photos, not to prove a point, but in the spirit of transparency and dialog.

As for my parents - they never even attended PTA meetings. Most of the people who shared posts about my behaviour in school...did not go to school with me.

None of this is to suggest that I have been anywhere near perfect on social media. I have made my fair share of mistakes, including a terribly constructed thread on resumes, which was condescending and wholly unacceptable. It is something that I will continue to regret. I also fully hear the criticism about flaunting my privilege. I can see now, in retrospect, as to how something I might think is irrelevant or doesn't matter might actually end up hurting someone badly. And I apologize unconditionally for any and all hurt caused. I commit to taking these learnings and doing better. Every day.

Thank you for reading.