HOLE = HOPE

Having recently purchased a black leather belt, I was very pleasantly surprised to find that it was too loose for my waist. The goody-goody guardian angel in my mind praised, “Maybe the tummy tyres have deflated a bit.” But the nasty devil in my subconscious said with a sneer, “Must have been an oversized man’s belt. Or a belt with manufacturing defects. Which explains why it was on sale. And what with the amount of ice cream you are hogging (during the break from work because of the ongoing teachers’ strike), fat chance you have of reducing all that tummy fat.”

I shooed the horned horror away and went to the friendly neighbourhood mochi (shoe-repairer) to get an extra hole drilled into the belt. The gentleman in question knows me quite well, courtesy my umbrellas with the broken sticks and my shoes with the broken straps. He asked me, “Kitney holes chahiye?” (How many holes do you want in the belt?).

Hesitatingly ambitious, I said, “Do bana dijiye.” (Make two extra holes).

Deftly poking new holes in the black leather, he aked, “Aur ek bana doon?” (Shall I make one more hole?).

Banishing a wildly improbable vision of myself with a clinched hourglass waist, I despairingly said, “Kya fayda? Do se zyada to lagnewala nahi hai kabhi.” (What’s the use? There is hardly any chance of me ever needing more than two extra holes in the belt).

Lifting his head from his work with a huge encouraging smile, the man urged, “Aas rakhney mey kya harj haye?” (What’s the problem in hoping?).

And so I agreed. And purchased MOTIVATION for the minuscule sum of two rupees. And returned home with a belt that has three extra holes to tighten around my waist. Three extra notches of hope that “YES I CAN...trim the tummy" (Sorry, Obama, for frivolously misapplying your slogan).