“I am on a Diet “
The moment I uttered it,my friend started laughing voraciously with a disdain usually reserved only when he hears something outrageously impossible and inconceivable… However I felt like he was laughing mockingly at the director of an intense and serious foreign language movie!! It was insulting and hardly motivating for a guy who was hoping to get a tummy like Baba Ramdev’s!
“I am on a Diet “ I vehemently thundered again thumping my fist down the desk…. But I was greeted again with a nonchalant response that was making a mockery of general practices to be followed in mockery. Not to be discouraged by such folks, I set a deadline for myself. It was my own Anna Hazare moment of truth.
I saw telebranding videos of a white chettan from Louisiana, USA speaking flawless Malayalam in Kairali TV and swinging sidewise flaunting his six packs. Along with him was a chedathi who was showing a photo of another lady claiming it was herself one week ago. Surprisingly she knew Malayalam and sounded less convincing to me because she had a heavy Thrissur accent and I haven’t really seen many blondes out there at the Round.What really discouraged me was the chettan looked like someone who was still evolving into a human.
Meanwhile I searched for articles on how to lose weight in 7 days without exercising and without compromising on cheese burgers. That unfortunate day, Google failed me for the first time in my life….However I wondered how life is when people eat salads, throw away the egg yolk, buy a chocolate pastry and give that “OMG so many calories” look and actually read what is written behind milk cartons. So when I got a fruit bowl for breakfast I could sense somewhere deep down that I was doing something completely unnatural coz fruits as I knew until then was used only for making soaps natural. And a few days later I discovered a cruel and highly uncreative meal called the salad… A bowl which vaguely reminded me of the kitchen while Amma was cutting the veggies for an avial!!Folks who are not familiar with salad must know that it was used as a torture technique during the crusades. Believe me!! All those vegetables look good only in high definition television!
This brief attempt with fruits and salads resulted in cold turkey. I started hallucinating and behaving like a zombie… I would imagine fried ethakkappams and chicken kebabs floating around me…I insulted my friend Sam by addressing him as Samosa during a project meeting. At the canteen I longingly looked at the main course… the paneer so near and yet so far….Maybe as they say revenge is a dish best served cold and no surprise if the cold turkey must have been the curse of a sizeable lineage of chickens, cows, goats which had an abrupt end thanks to me.
Not to shy away that easily I looked for inspiration in movies… There was a Sylvester Stallone in me who was jogging inMysore city streets at ungodly hours to the background music reminiscent of his “Rocky” training …I would symbolically raise my hands at 12th cross, Vijayanagar 2nd stage staring intensely at chamundi hills only to be greeted by a few cows grazing early in the morning!! Other days I felt like a man on a run…a la Forrest Gump but not cross country like in the movie where they hide reality…mine was inside the Taluk only and I drove back home in a car….I bought Nike track wear and started drinking Gatorade and it made me feel like Carl Lewis though maybe his pace was negligibly different…Towards the end of such a routine the uncanny resemblance with a panting dog made me realize why the wise men say it’s a dog’s life after all…
In such a situation I sought solace in Jesus…I asked him for a sign….A sign that would tell me what to do….
“Oh Lord, I am hungry!!” I clenched my palms and looked skywards…
So when I walked into that book store I had no inkling of the mysterious ways the lord works…
I glanced at a book…”Eat, Pray and Love” which during that moment of enlightenment read...”Eat, Eat and Eat”
That was a sign and I knew it… And then there was another sign as I kept roaming in the bookstore…
“Who moved my Cheese…?”
Oh Lord, you even tell me what to eat!!Cheese Burger right? Your mysterious ways!!
My joy knew no bound as I started running out to the streets… Faces crossed my mind…Baba Ramdev...Rocky Balboa….Maybe it’s another sign I thought…. After pacifying myself I returned home consoling that maybe after all there is nothing like a free lunch … or in my case fat-free lunch!
And a few days back as I strolled by M.G Road Bangalore, I saw a bespectacled man wearing a bow tie at a distance…He seemed to be the kind who gives one of those offer you cannot refuse…His shop was buzzing with friends curiously dipping hands in oversized red buckets ….I stared longingly through the glass window of the KFC outlet….but then a poem crossed my mind…
The drumsticks are crunchy, golden, and delicious,
But I have promises to keep,
And calories to burn before I sleep,
And calories to burn before I sleep
Well...umm….Maybe the in’fat’uation would last for a while…
