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).

WHAT DOES YOUR SHOPPING TROLLEY SAY ABOUT YOU?

A few days back, my daughters and I had gone to Hypercity in Malad to pick up a few things (one of our last jaunts before summer vacation ends). As always happens when the kids come along, we strolled along the aisles picking up unnecessary things from the shelves. Things like lollipops (the sweet kind), easy-to-make crème brulee and vanilla pudding mixes (the very sweet kind) and chocolate donuts (the very very sweet kind) – you get the drift?

And, with our trolley groaning under all those superbly superfluous calories, we waited in the check-out line, using our time to pick up a few more mama-please-I-want-them-so-much-otherwise-I-will-bawl-my-lungs-out stuff like bubblegum and chocolate-bars.

In front of us in the queue stood a lean and muscled television actor (Gaurav Chopra? I have a BAD TV-celebrity-quotient) accompanied, presumably, by his slim and pretty girlfriend and two overloaded trolleys. I STARED – at them and at the trolleys:

Dozens of Sofit soymilk tetrapacks – check
Tubs of low-cal yogurt – check
Countless tetrapacks of Real Active fruit juice – check
Kilos of cucumbers – check
Quite a few watermelons – check
One tiny bottle of olive oil – check.

I looked from their calorie-low shopping trolleys to the six-pack abs and the sixteen-inch waist. Then, with a sigh, I looked at my calorie-flow trolley and my tummy-tyres (spares).

It figured.

LESSONS IN BELLY-GERENCE

• Every summer vacation, I re-distribute my weight. No, I do not lose any weight – far from it. But running after my daughters, doing all the housework in the absence of the maid (who also goes for a forty-day sabbatical), feasting on mangoes and getting up late has a strange effect on my anatomy.
  
  I lose weight around my face and arms. And this reluctant-to-leave-me weight settles around my already rotund stomach. Which gives rise to various heavily-loaded situations and learning experiences:
  
  
• The salesgirl from ‘Dermawear’ sees me shopping at Big Bazaar and pounces. “Why don’t you buy one of our abdominal belts?” Sucker that I am, I end up buying one, lured by promises of ‘reduction of waistline by at least two inches’. (A drop in the ocean, but beggars can’t be choosers. Or losers, in this case.)
  On wearing this new-fangled contraption on another mall-sojourn, my tummy looks a tad tighter to begin with, but I end up all sweaty, hot and bothered because it clings in the heat. And the belt ends up all rolled-up like a sock around my waist. And my jeans keeps slipping down because of the sock-belt. Not an experience I’d care to repeat, initially-tighter-tummy notwithstanding.
  
• The Li’l Cat, my elder daughter, is making sentences from adjectives. I advise her that it is better to write a sentence where the meaning of the adjective becomes clear. For instance, instead of writing “Tom is lazy”, it makes more sense to write, “Tom is lazy and he never helps his mother with the housework” (hint, hint). After following my advice for a few adjectives, she comes across the word “FAT” and writes, “My mother is fat”, claiming that the sentence is self-explanatory.
  
• The Copy-kitten, my younger daughter, is drawing shapes. After a few shaky squares and careful circles, she draws a huge oblong blob, taking up almost the whole of a page, smiles with a sense of achievement, and proudly says, “Eta holo mamma petu” (This is mummy’s tummy).
  
  LESSONS LEARNT:
  Salesgirls encourage self-delusion.
  Family brings about self-awareness.
  
  Now that I’ve learnt my lessons, it would nice if the belly would lessen a little.

DENTIST AT WORK: TEETH UNDER CONTRUCTION

I really am fed up to my teeth about my, well, teeth (or whatever remains of them). I’m a veteran visitor at the dentist’s, and I’m sure he’s planning an academic research paper on the subject of my teeth.

Various kinds of civil construction work continue to take place inside my mouth, leaving me feeling distinctly uncivil.

I’ve had root canals, metal crowns, ceramic crowns (in the inverted world of dental logic, steel crowns are more expensive than gold crowns, and ceramic ones are the costliest – figure that out), bridges and other architectural marvels in my mouth. Does that make me a big-mouth? I shudder to think what my real teeth look like under all that reconstruction. A bomb-hit, devastated, charred-and-filed to bits archaeological ruins of what was once a white and wince-free city?

I’ve had two wisdom teeth taken out. The remaining two should, by definition, make me a half-wit.

And now, I’ve got to go for another bridge-work, adding to the existing two. With the number of canals and bridges that I have, I sometimes feel like an oral replica of the city of Venice (and here I was hoping to be a Venus with a perfect smile).

So, there I’ll be again – in the dentist’s scary-chair, open-mouthed and resigned to my fate, wincing at the drill and blinking at the light. Oh, for the toothless joys of infancy/old age! Maybe, that is much less painful than the ruthless re-shaping of my dental geography.

PRIDE COMES BEFORE A ...THROAT-ACHE

Somebody up there is having a good laugh at my expense. A few days back, I had GLOATINGLY posted a comment on how self-important and self-satisfied I feel when I am down with some illness. Sheer HUBRIS.
Here I am now, feeling completely miserable instead of me-at-the-centre-of-the-universe. This is the merry month of May, when I'm on my summer holiday...but I can't even giggle, let alone laugh aloud.
I have met my nemesis, the sorest throat I have ever had, and eating and talking (two of the greatest joys of my life) are now two painful, throat-wracking/wrecking exercises, preferably avoided completely.
But that is not to be. I have to eat (and drink, water at least) and talk, too, as I am the only one at home, looking after a seven-year-old who needs a verbal-reminder-a-minute to finish her food/milk/homework AND a two-year-old who needs to be read four entire books of nursery rhymes before she deigns to sleep (and, of course, constant verbal cajolings and scoldings when she is awake).
In true Greek-tragedy fashion, I have had an anagnorisis (realization). The one thing I have realized is that a mother’s job is mainly vocal/oral/speech-based. And again, like an authentic Greek tragedy, this realization has come slightly late in the day….
I just want to bawl my lungs out, like a Greek chorus of old women, but every word I speak aloud is AGONY. The self-pity is there alright, but I just wish it’d go away, along with the soreness which seems to scratch down my throat and stretch across to my ears…Oh, for a catharsis of the catarrh....

GOD PROMISE : I will never, ever, be frivolous about fevers or tinker about with throat-sores, I swear on my Aristotle.

GYM-YATRA or HOW TO REACH OUR INNER/LEANER SELF

Indians, it is said, are a deeply religious lot. For urban Indians, gymming is the new religion, and the daily yatra (travel) to the gym is the new pilgrimage.
Instead of trekking up mountains where the gods reside, we fervently toil on the treadmills. Koshto korley keshto meley (hard work will lead you to divinity). So, huff puff huff puff pant pant pant pant… (are the pants becoming looser?).
The strict tofu-and-lettuce diets follow the route of self-denial and the austerity of upavaas (fasting). Detox the body and purify the inner/leaner self. Overcome GLUTTONY, the deadliest sin…do NOT drool over the DEVIL’S DESSERTS (or Satan’s saturated fats). And, if we do (and I often do) get tempted, we can do our prayaschitra (redemption) by an extra hour of treadmill-ing.

We are the new CRUSADERS (AGAINST CALORIES), seeking the elusive HOLY GRAIL OF THE SIZE ZERO/SIX PACK. Ramakrishna said, jato math, tato path (there are as many paths to God as there are faiths). So, pilates, aerobics, kick-boxing, belly-dancing or the genuinely divine yoga, all roads will, hopefully, lead us to THE ONE goal – the body perfect.
In this gym-mandir (temple), we forget the macrocosm (kids, spouse, office, home, kitchen... the whole calorie-filled world) and focus on the micro – the biceps, the abs, the little finger on the right…with absolute concentration. The reward for THE DEVOUT is the feeling of SHEER VIRTUOUSNESS that a gym-session brings in us.
The Hare Rama Hare Krishna chant is replaced with Bollywood music (the new prayer on the pilgims’ lips, er...earphones) pulsating from the speakers, egging us on, creating a trance-like self-absorption that can almost transcend the finite (and fat-laden) boundaries of the self.
And as we shed our inhibitions and, hopefully, the kilos of fat, our inner, leaner selves merge into the divine…the demi-god figures of a Salman Khan or a Bipasha Basu (or a Posh Spice or Becks). As the body is liberated from the calorie-shackles, NIRVANA (divine bliss) is attained. HALLELUJAH! HARI OM!

CONFESSION BOOTH: This PILGRIM’S PROGRESS is very tedious and transgression-filled, her treadmill-CANTERBURY TALES is more of a sedate stroll, but she hopes that at the end of the road she’ll meet the GOD OF SMALL THINGS (Waistlines, specifically).

What's your gym-confession?