Excess baggage

Much to my surprise, I have begun to gain weight.

The surprise stems from the fact that I have spent several of my growing years bracketed as ‘skinny’ before reaching respectable proportions. When I was in school, my mother tried feeding me every weight gain potion and tonic she could find. I did my bit by doing weightlifting with water bottles and trying to develop a love for food apart from French fries. Finally, by the time I started my post grads, I had reached a stage where I no longer needed to celebrate the emergence of a new kg on the weighing scale. (Earlier I used to treat my friends to chocolates when this happened!)

Once I started working, I thought nothing of eating out at the drop of a hat. I love cheese and junk food and saw no reason not to indulge myself. I knew weight gain was not something that came easily to me. The battle of the bulge was the farthest thing from my mind much to the envy of my peer group. I say all this to give some idea of how alien my current situation feels to me. It is only in the last couple of years that I have begun to feel a slowdown in my metabolism. It took me a while to accept the idea that, yes, I was indeed sliding down the road to plumpness. The numbers on the weighing scale are inching upwards as the cheeseburst pizzas and zinger burgers begin to catch up with me.

For a long while it was just enough to look at people around me and think that at least I was not ‘that’ fat (you know what I mean?). But I couldn’t deceive myself any longer after I realized I could no longer wear some of my favourite clothes. After spending months simply ‘thinking’ about diet and exercise, I joined a gym. I decided that food was one of the greatest pleasures left to man and I couldn’t, simply couldn’t, starve myself or stay away from my favourite dishes. I joined the neighbourhood gym with a lot of gusto, the vision of a slimmer me, crystal clear in my head.

My enthusiasm and energy didn’t last long. I was waking up at the unearthly hour of 7am to go to the gym which was run by a couple of ladies in their home. The challenge of waking early was daunting enough. Coupled with a ‘no pressure’, homely atmosphere it led to a serious lack of enthusiasm. I needed to know that I was burning fat, I wanted to know which muscles I was building up, I needed something more motivating. So I dropped out after a couple of weeks and began to search in earnest for a ‘proper’ gym. After much research and deliberation, I joined a gym near my office. I reasoned it had to be close to my home or my office if I was going to go there regularly. I also decided to go after work to avoid the problem of waking up early.

This gym has all the works. (Which it should, considering that it’s the most expensive one in the whole city!) They have the latest machines, a trainer to guide you and monitor your progress, steam rooms etc. Once I make it there, it’s all good. I exercise for nearly an hour and a half and while my body realizes just how out of shape it is, I get the satisfaction of knowing that I am actually doing something to correct the problem. Afterward, I drag my exhausted self into a cab and lie there like a zombie as some semblance of life slowly creeps back into me.

But. This entire scenario only works if I actually make it to the gym. I have discovered in myself an unfortunate tendency to dream up a multitude of reasons not to exercise on any given day. More often than not, I feel sorry for my poor self stuck in office the whole day. A minion of the corporate powers, my salvation seems to lie in making a run for home and hearth as soon as possible (or having a Wicked Brownie at the nearby Barista). So now I spend a bomb on my gym membership to satisfy some twisted part of my mind. My exercise in the last week has been confined to shopping for gym clothes and reading articles on the internet about treadmills and exercycles and lat pulleys…

But ……….today is a new day and as I write this, the spirit of my slimmer self is strong in me. I want to be her again…Watch out gym, here I come!

Oh Captain, my Captain!

Recently saw Captain America: The first Avenger. While the movie wasn't so great (even though am a sucker for superheroes), I rediscovered Chris Evans.

Is he a fine piece of eye candy or what? :)







Image courtesy: Google

Uttar Dakshin Purab Paschim

Well there's this major blog battle going on because a South Indian girl wrote some vitriolic stuff about Delhi boys here. The Madrasan, as she calls herself, has been lauded but has also been at the receiving end of major Delhiite outrage.

For my part, I think the girl is sharp but immature. Her post crossed the fine line between being humorously sarcastic and being genuinely nasty. And because generalisations are always crap. Just because she met an obnoxious Delhiite or two (or more) doesn't really mean that she can lambast the whole breed. Also I think that in this time and age, people would be more broadminded and judge (if they must) based on individuals not on communities or skin colour or gender.
Most reactionary posts that I read were not half as biting or offensive as hers was. Here's one which I particularly liked. Funny, witty and makes some good points. My only concession to the Madrasan would be that she has the 'right to write' what she wants to on her blog.

But her post shows that most people are still quite happy to play 'us vs. them' games. I guess its human nature to want divides. Being different is not always cool, sometimes its almost a crime. What else would explain all the communalism and regionalism that we still see these days. People want separate states (as if India didn't already have enough of them), people want to rename states to bring it closer to the regional name (a dumb idea if ever there was one!)...

I am a South Indian born and brought up in the Eastern part of the country and I speak fluent Bangla. Most people commend me for it and express their astonishment. By now, I have explained to several hundred Bengalis that the reason behind this is because I have been born and brought up in the East, because I have several close friends who are Bengali. Most don't seem quite convinced. In their eyes I'm still something of a rare bird. The other day a woman commented that "you people come from outside and learn to speak our language so well, I don't think I could do the same." I forebore to tell her that in today's age, when we have the freedom to travel and settle in any part of the world, to talk about 'coming from outside' is a moot point. I realised that telling her that my family had been settled in the East for a few generations had not made a difference to her. So I let her enjoy her blistering parochialism (or candour depending on which view you take). After all it takes all kinds.

I think its okay to be attached to a place, its historic grandeur, its warm people, its cute foibles and its appalling laziness. Its a bit like how one feels about friends - the funny one, the caring one, the full on masti one. One doesn't discriminate between friends basis community, religion or skin colour. I listen to generalizations but I react to individuals.
But sometimes I do feel that I am expected to align myself to a particular way of thinking and being. As if tying me down would give me more freedom. I resent this. I intend to set up a Non Aligned Movement of my own. And so I won't get into any discussion of Delhi boys and Southie gals...just tell me when you meet a nice PERSON.

Il Pensoroso

I find myself reliving the past more and more often these days. I think of the good times and the bad. I remember the simple pleasures and the complicated sorrows. I remember the heartwarming surprises, the lazy days in the winter sun, the chatter of familiar voices all around. I remember the trivial problems that seemed so huge. I remember the secret tears and unarticulated fears.

I don't know why but I feel quite a disconnect with the way of thinking these days. I am quite happily ensconced in the Chitrahaar era as far as my most of my beliefs go. I believe in the value of family, respecting elders, in true love, in wide-eyed innocence, in shyness as an acceptable virtue...in a simpler, less hedonistic way of living. I surf the net to connect to the world, I shop to feel good and I aim for a bigger house...but I remember a time during those long, familar power cuts when friends, family, neighbours sat around a communal aangan, drank endless cups of chai and chatted about everything under the sun to pass the time. Sometimes I participated, sometimes I just let their words wash over me like a river of warmth. Sometimes I read my storybooks by the light of a candle. Sometimes I made up poems and fairytales to tell the other kids.

I think of "multiverses" or alternate universes sometimes. It refers to the idea that there are multiple universes where maybe you also exist but your life has taken a different turn. You are not a mother of two kids settled in happy domesticity but a free-spirited adventurer. Or it could even be that time is not a contunuum as we perceive it, but an infinite series of parallel universes. This means that every moment that I have lived exists as a separate data point somewhere. I think that maybe, while I sit here typing out this post so full of yearning for days irretrievably gone by, there could be a world where that life still exists. Somewhwere in the vast mysteries of space and time.

After all think of how little we know about how the world was created. We run about our daily lives, one among the billions who inhabit a small rock suspended in what we call space. A space that has no beginning and no end. I find this incredibly awe-inspiring and scary. The idea that there is no beginning, no middle, no end to it all. How many other worlds are there? Is space really infinite? It boggles the mind to think of all these spheres spinning silently in eternity, sprouting life forms. Life forms who over aeons manage to complicate their life in incredible ways. We really forget or maybe we don't want to remember that at the end of it all, you are just an insignificant speck in the universe.

Yeah...its an effing trippy post.

Where is the love?

A riot caused by consumerism. Teenagers in one of the most developed cities in the world resorting to petty thieving and violence just for the heck of it. Grabbing unlawfully what they haven't earned simply because they want it. Using social media to alert and coordinate with each other. A government that is supposedly ready to face riots but is unable to tackle youngsters in its own backyard. Anarchy due to avarice.

In another hitherto peaceful nation, a gunman mows down students at a youth summer camp and bombs the government building exposing a new form of terror - homegrown right-wing militants who oppose multiculturalism.

Even as the world grapples to solve old problems new ones seem to crop up. Wonder what kind of a future are moving towards if globalisation, greater disposable incomes, increased connectivity to all corners of the world do not result in increased tolerance and respect.

Raindrops

Gray

Rainy, rainy day. Gray skies overhead. Water trickling down the windowpanes. Finally its cool enough to feel comfortable in your skin. For me, the first real monsoon day in Calcutta. That familiar difficulty in getting out of bed and getting dressed for work on a day that seduces you with its promise of cloud cocoons and lightning heartbeats. That familiar difficulty in getting a cab, waiting under a dripping umbrella with a laptop on my back watching the world rush by and feeling strangely distanced. I feel like I might keep waiting there forever – the rain flirting with me, getting into my shoes, breezing across my face, splashing onto my hands as I try to hail yet another cab.

I wonder what’s the worst that can happen if I just go back home and get into bed. I muse about the unfairness of a life where I run in an endless circle and let a marvellous monsoon pass me by.