Greed and the woman

And so this entire week passed in a haze of coughing like I was trying out for tuberculosis patient role in ancient Hindi Film which used to have storylines, one of those side characters who die dramatically much like the scene where a really scrawny Raza Murad passes out with a rotund and cherubically cheerful Rajesh Khanna singing a really philosophical song which passes over my head…anyway, you get my drift. The left eye ballooned out to obscene levels which then meant I couldnt put in them contact lenses, so all pretences at vanity went for a toss too. Given that with every hacking cough I was spitting up phlegm and, horror of horrors, fresh red blood, I could have even auditioned for a role in Dracula Returns. Yes, I was at my smashing best all last week.

Yes, yes, spent the past couple of days being poked and prodded and Xrayed and blood tested till there is absolutely no blood left in the body, but apparently I can now put the pen aside and let that will I was writing out, with great care for clause and sub clause, and the pondering over intensely over who should get my sole pair of kickass Choos, and who would get my favourite bags, my favourite gold bling Guess, my Fendi, and how I would be mean and nasty, and like the really stupid ad with the sidey characters, will everything to the maid. And then hover around like a fly on the wall during the will reading to note disappointed faces, given that none of them jeans will ever fit anyone I know given they’ve been altered and stretched beyond decent logical sizes. Never mind if they cost an arm and a leg. My book collection, the rest of my clothes, my watch and sunglasses collection. Dammit, I do have a lot to will away in non essentials. And of course, my minsicule collection of jewellery which I would rather give to charity.  Seriously, though, it was, in troth, a liberating experience, I recommend it to all and sundry. Write out your will. You will realise how you actually have nothing to really hold onto except perhaps your spouse and your children.

And of course, given my penchant for high drama, the very melodramatic questioning of the child as to whether one would be missed should one be not around, to which said fruit of the womb replied cheerfully, “No.” Which promptly shut me up from further melodrama, and got me right back to threatening an immediate nasty spanking should he continue to roll around the floor and not write out his alphabets as decreed mandatory thanks to reams of weekend homework.

But, the result of the gadzillion tests show that apparently all the horrific possibilities of life threatening diseases have been ruled out, and the husband has some more time before he can dance on my grave, and chase all the skirts he wants.  Nothing more serious than a minor blood vessel being ruptured in the windpipe due to racking cough, which accounted for raw painful throat, and lack of ability to ingest solids. Which of course, one circumvented beautifully by finding the sort of foods that are amenable to ingestion in mashed pureed state, never mind the calories. Therefore mashed potato with butter and pepper came back into favour. Pastries too. I was sick. I need the health benefits of added calories. And all the comfort food you can think off. Specially, the ones which require no chewing and just simple swallowing. Chicken soup. Yup, corn starch laden type.

I am not even getting me near any weighing scale till the cough disappears. A sick woman’s gotta nurse herself back to health.

 

The throat is raw

…coughing like a wizened old lady. The eyeballs are bloodshot. The face is swollen and puffy. Yesterday at the mall playzone, little children stared at me in horror and parted way to allow me to pass.

The best part about it all? Cant get anything edible down this ravaged throat, so am on complete liquid diet. Yup. Thats my silver lining to this cloud. Hopefully, two to three kilos down by the end of it all. The trouble is, the first place the fat starts getting a move on is the face. Will probably do a Marlon Brando and stick in some jowls for face fat later, rather than look heroin chic.

Bring on the sympathy, am feeling hacking racking miserable!

On the weight that is not getting lost

Over the past couple of weeks my diet is getting increasingly simplified. If it looks edible, I will eat. This has reduced a lot of confusion in the household. Gerrout all them leftovers, the garbage bag is right at the dining table, fork and spoon in hand. And for all ye who visit bearing candy and chocolates for the critter, know that none of them will be reaching his stomach, thanks to worm infestation threats, and teeth which have become cavity zones. No, no, my good self will be doing the world a favour and downing entire bars before blink can happen. And you blinked. And missed it.

I have been on a comfort eating overdrive so bad, that in analogy terms I would be wrapped in a goosedown silk quilt and with a satin covered down pillow, sleeping on sating sheets in a sound proofed room, with no strange crows squawking around at midnight, or wierder people living in the flat above making thumping sounds on the floor that could possibly be furniture being moved at 2 am, or elephants mating. Seeing that elephants wouldnt be able to make it to the 16th floor without us being witnesses to them being hauled up by crane and pulley situation, I wonder what sort of people decide to redecorate at hours when saner people wish to sleep. Never mind. The comfort eating, read, ordering in pakoras, vadas, chocolates, even plain butter on bread is being occasioned of course, by the wonderful monsoon lashing the scenery. Something about dull grey skies before me that makes it mandatory to go on calorific overdrive. No excuses. Therefore the huffing and puffing when the jeans have to buttoned every morning, and the cursing of the washing machine and detergent for shrinking every pair I own to barbie doll proportions, and viewing self in the mirror with body and head at a  diagonal angle to ensure that the flab gets cut to proportion also helps make one feel better about self.

Another trick in the kitty is to never, never, never, ever look at yourself in changing room mirrors. You change, and see if the damn thing goes up your thighs and buttons up or goes down your shoulders and doesnt tear and hot foot it out of there. Ask a disinterested third party for their opinion on whether you should buy it. Changing room mirrors are spawned of a conspiracy between slimming centres and shopowners where them centres pay the stores a flat commission on every candidate who runs to them screaming from the trauma of having seen self reflected infinitely in insanely well lit mirrors which magnify every bump, every stretch of orange peel skin and every little spare tyre that refuses to get punctured.

A lot of comfort eating has also happened with the added stress of realisation that I cannot, anymore, hold off being firmly in aunty territory. It is so unfair, the husband greys all over and looks like a dapper version of Richard Gere. I grey all over and become old hag. Should probably keep the broomstick handy.

Having realised that the weight loss scheme is actually going nowhere, by this combined double whammy of rains, therefore no walks, and rains, therefore excessive junk food ingestion, and the fact that the area of the mattress where I normally sit and read my dose of celeb and fashion news, accompanied by them comfort foods is getting surely and firmly indented, I have decided to take action. I will now not snack on overdrive anymore. Which means, I will keep myself away from temptation. Which in turn means, I probably need to lock myself in the bathroom and firmly resist eating up the soaps.

Or maybe that would be a good idea, I would eat them soaps, get the stomach a wash out and then be totally off food forever and ever. The other day at lunch with friends noticed suddenly, in what I thought was my starting round that all had cleaned up their plates and kept cutlery in 12 oclock position. I shamelessly laboured on. Why waste good food! This conscience of course, will never strike me, should said food comprise karela and greens. Any one know of any hypnosis kind of therapy that will make the thought of eating fat laden sweet, deep fried and other such items of obesity absolutely repugnant, kindly do send link over.

And maybe, just maybe, I need to get busier. The more idle time one has, the more one eats. And thinks of what could be eaten next. Having no time to eat sounds marvellously puffed with self importance.

Or maybe, just maybe, I should make a promise to myself that I will only eat what I cook myself. I can guarantee will drop two dress sizes in a month. Maybe I will become so fabulously slim doing that that people will clamour for my secret and will do a book on it, and book tours and readings and such like and make lots of money. But, alas, even wild horses with Gucci saddles couldnt drag me to a table set with food cooked by moi, so that plan goes the way of all my good intentions.

Will just take the stairs once a day. That should do it, I guess. If I have any calves left after a week.

 

 

A happy birthday to me…

So it is officially on me. The fact that I am a big fat liar, and that the header on this blog needs desperately to be changed immediately to thirtysevenandcounting if I am an honest child and worthy of my mother’s trust and the values of honesty and fair play she inculcated in me, etc, etc.

Given that my first immediate fight or flee reaction to hitting 37 is to run to the registrars office and make fake birth certificates which lower me down ten years, I guess nothing the mother ever taught me has sunk in. 

 Why is it that 37 suddenly make me feel I need to take a scotchtape and put it along the hairline to pull the falling face up? 36 didnt feel all that bad, given that a lot of falling happened with the body, and most of it falling that no amount of wishful thinking or visits to plastic surgeons and such like could have put back in place.

It is a fear that an increasingly youth centric society is foisting on me, the fear that I am getting long in the teeth and curved in the spine. That the face is getting character lines which show more character than I would like it too. That the cobwebs beneath the eyes have become nice and latticed and crinkly. And no amount of soft patting on of undereye cream is doing anything to salvage the situation, except keep me from snoring five minutes more. Also the fact that any cream I buy has to, by virtue of necessity, have to say ANTI AGEING in big capital letters somewhere on the label. Which also means I end up not buying a lot of hair products because none of them have anything going for ageing hair. Come on, there is a niche market out there for us ageing hair types. I can just see the ads, bouncing, glowing youthful hair type walks past leching model type who taps said bouncing hair on shoulder. Bouncing hair turns around, and lech model type male gasps open mouthed, “Dadima??” and falls dramatically to the pavement, clutching left side of chest tom imply immediate coronary due to the shock caused by the realisation that he had been hitting on his grandmom. Of course, a life insurance and a low fat oil could also split costs of production and airtime on this commercial. Now there’s another thought, a couple of products join hands to have a lovely narrative that interests the viewers and bungs in two to three brands so we dont have to suffer onslaught on onslaught of mindless drivel ads that get repeated ad infinitum ad nauseum. Ah, I digress again.

To return to the point. I am now doing a rehaul of the role models in the mind’s cavern. Demi Moore? Sharon Stone? Monica Belluci? Madonna?

Yup, yup, throw in an Ashton Kutcher, and I’m game to be over 40. Never mind the latticed eyes.

 

 

 

Mega Mall shopping sans the crowds

So there was I, with similiar shopping fetish friend with me for company, at this new mall, at Oshiwara in Andheri. On the link road. Opposite Oshiwara Bus Depot. On a triangular shaped plot. To your right if you’re coming down from Malad and to your left if you’re coming down from Bandra. Yes, yes, thats how badly I want you to go there, you better take down the instructions to reach there in triplicate or safer still take a printout of this post.

I have been there before, with the child and the mother in law, which as anyone with a child and a mother in law will tell you is the worst possible combination to take shopping with you because you end up running around behind the child, if your child is the normal child sort who runs away unfettered when confronted with huge expanses of space, and is not the kind of child who will hold on to hand proferred to be held and your mother in law is the normal sort of mother in law who wants to search for sarees in ’sober’ colours in GAS and BHS.

Therefore, the first time round was nothing to write home about. Given that I spent all my time there running at warp speed around its triangular expanse, preventing the child from trying to climb down the escalator and such earth shattering escapades, I barely got a look see into the shops lined up beckoning seductively for my cash and my credit card.

This time it was different. For one, I had a companion who like me was as likely to rip my hair out if we both got fixated on a single top of which the last piece in size XL was available. That spiced up things a bit. And secondly, we actually got a chance to look into the shops and try and find such a blouse to fight over.

The brands there are to kill for. SOlivier, GAS, Sepia, TresMode, Bhs, Levis (Which is incidentally on 50 per cent sale, which had my eyes out on stalks but unfortunately, I refused to try in public situation without sympathetic and tolerant husband around to bear my endless saga of never finding the right fit, but get your butt there now if you want some), OYO for them kids, Adams Kids, Pumpkin Patch, also for them kids, Spykar for the teen segment, Provogue, Pantaloons (not much a fan of the two latter ones), Chemistry and many more. Names escape me at the moment. Obviously the memory is going the way of dotage and senility with far greater rapidity than I had envisaged when I recently bought myself a bright red shirt.

What I did love about this place the absolute and total best? The huge space, and the lack of crowd. Inorbit on a weekend is like battling to get into the second class compartment of a local train. And Infinity Mall is no better. The elbows get put to good use to propel yourself through the crowd. Here I could actually see the next tile on the floor before me while I walked. And the stores were so starved of customers that salesmen did cartwheels when we entered and played fetch like panting little puppies as per our whims and fancies. Unlike busier stores where salespeople have been known to snarl at one should one dare interrupt them from their nose cleaning sessions to enquire if they have a similar piece in sizes not meant for Barbie dolls. Read the sales staff at Sheetal in Inorbit. And sales staff at Remanika also in Inorbit. Or maybe one did not look either the weighed down with zari customer potentiate for the first, or the anorexic teeny bopper requisite for the second and therefore not worthy of their time and money.

Anyway, here at every store the red carpet was rolled out, with mandatory rose petals sprinkled with our every step, and such like stuff that could become a bad habit and spoil you for when you go regular shopping and need to push through crowds and plead with sales staff to deign to get you sizes you need.

And the crowds in this mall seemed the sort who were likely to say excuse me, if they needed to get past you. Unlike interesting episodes at Inorbit where have been shoved aside ruthlessly by mammoth plastic chappal clad dowagers intent on getting to the food court. And shoving me aside is not a task for the faint hearted, rest assured. Much muscle power and energy needs to be expended for said purpose.

Alas, not much shopping happened. Feasted our eyes on the delectables on display, and then sashayed our mammoth butts across the road to the CCC across the road and went mad over Promod and Zara at throwaway prices.

 

 

 

Research confirms that women have shopping on the brain

Much like how men have sex on the brain? Like how they think of getting it on with every person from the girl walking down the street to the Playmate on their screensaver. Every 0.52 seconds of their lives? Yes, while the man in your life is licking his lips at the thought of a threesome with you and your best friend (I kid you not, this is the most popular male fantasy around say the statistics), your brain is going on dopamine overdrive with every 50 per cent sale you pass.

Research statistics, and yes, I am a big one for research given that there is always some research to justify any point you want to make, point out to the fact that the same areas of the brain light up when men think of sex, and when women think of shopping.

Here goes:

LONDON: A fascinating survey has revealed that most of the young women think about shopping nearly as often as men think about sex.

A survey involving 778 women aged 19 to 45 showed that seventy-four per cent of them think about shopping every minute.

Previous studies have claimed to support the widely-held belief that young men think about sex every 52 seconds, while the subject crosses some women’s minds only once a day.

In the latest survey by an online fashion magazine, two out of five women described themselves as shoe and bag “addicts”, while the thoughts of more than one in ten focused on accessories or make-up. On average, those surveyed spent at least 30 per cent of their annual income on clothes.

“People think about things which bring them pleasurable feelings. The pleasure is usually in the anticipating and planning,” psychologist Jane Prince of the University of Glamorgan said.

“But so many women displaying this level of preoccupation, thinking about something once a minute, would indicate widespread addictive behaviour,” she stressed.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the poll for men was that half of women surveyed said they preferred going to the market to spending time with their partner, and nearly as many acknowledged that they kept their shopping escapades secret from their partner to hide their level of spending.

So basically, I am a high sexual being, I would say. Given that I get withdrawal symptoms if I dont shop for at least one item of miniscule value per day, and have to run hands shaking, credit card held aloft, and shelves been ransacked in pillage manner that would put the Mongols to shame. And yes, the last part too, of huge handbags being pressed into service, to conceal spoils of shopping rampages when one slinks into the house, and hidden carefully in lingerie drawer that being the one sure place, the husband will never care to riffle through (says a lot about the current state of body shape, doesnt it, with extra control double support, tummy control and Nasa designed gravity defying, crane hoisting level of perfection innerwear that no one wants to get into), to be removed slowly and surreptiously and passed off as old item of clothing. Okay okay, I kid no one, but hell, I try. The man definitely notices when the clothes in the cupboard jump out and attack me everytime I dare open the door, and wonders how the pile of clothes never seem to shrink. And how the bags mate and produce offspring. And how the shoes are a tribute to the every growing population of India.

But what to do? Its such a thrill to hunt down the greatest bargains (I have a rule, I never shop at full price, it has to be discount stores or sales for me, small solace to my burgeoning guilty conscience), to sniff out a pair of shoes available at a throwaway rate to realise that they are fabulous mega brand that you could only dream of owning. Of buying a top at export surplus store because you really really liked the fabric, and take it home to realise, like a total tweet, you have picked up a MNG original for Rs 150.

Its the chase, the chase, like any man would agree, the thrill of the chase is what adds to the pleasure. Why else would I torture myself traipsing through industrial sheds, to find discount stores tucked away shyly in corners far from the public gaze.

The moral of the story: When you want your mans undivided attention, away from the F1, away from IPL, and away from Euro 2008, promise him action like he’s never had before. Its much easier for him. All he needs to do to get you in the mood is promise to take you shopping. Guaranteed to get you in the mood better than candles and soft music and champagne and chocolates. Keep that credit card handy girls, you owe it to spice up your love life.

 

Monsoon Memories

Before the slush, the sludge, the flooded roads, the infernal power cuts, the outbreaks of every communicable disease that mutating viruses can create, and before I start going down on my knees and begging the powers that be to send the sun out again, let me do a barf inducing round up of my best, held close to the heart, covered with gossamer type memories of the monsoon, the good, the bad and the very very ugly.

Running out of school, without bothering to put on the raincoat the mother has carefully and neatly folded into square centimeter size and packed into humunguous bag, and eating hot fresh corn roasted over a tandoor sigri, and basted till black and popped, rubbed over with lime and salt and chilli powder, a concoction which I could swear had some addictive substance added to it, which made one count out one’s petty change through the previous day in anticipation.

The heavens pouring down the day my graduation results were announced. And me, being me, reaching college to find out that I had been pipped as topper by single mark. And then realising, the road outside the college was a flood, I had no transport, and all my friends had already left for their residences, all within walking distance. This, of course, was the prehistoric era, pre mobile phones. Standing drenched to the skin, contemplating my course of action. And there comes my knight in shining armour. Also drenched to the skin, not due to lack of efficiency of umbrella, but rather, because he never carries an umbrella, and hand holds me through waist deep water and to a railway station where we find the trains have shut shop thanks to track flooding. So we sat on the platform bench and drank hot steaming chai from the railway stall, and didnt mind the wet and damp day, and went back to the beach to walk through the rain.

Me, working in the office at VT. Time to leave for home. When I realise the trains have packed up, the roads are flooded and I am in the middle of nowhere. I call the husband panicking. Stay where you are, he orders, I’ll come and get you. And I wait. And wait. And wait. And he comes, walking from Andheri. And manages to get us home, dry and in one piece, through a horrible night that saw more deaths by electrocution than I had ever known until 26th July 2005 happened.

Driving through the city, in our first car. A little white Maruti 800. Suddenly the skies opened up and rains lashed the road. The traffic swelling to anaconda proportions. And we content and happy to just be in the moment. No rush to get home. Soaking in the rain with our windows wide open.

Sitting by the window, watching the monsoon pour down on a verdant green Goan landscape, the sea rippling angrily, the little hacienda we were in alive with new sounds and fragrances from the rainsoaked garden. My husband’s head in my lap. A mug of coffee in my hand. Just a sense of calm and peace and being in the moment. A moment so tender and precious that we havent been able to replicate it since. And ofcourse, we have had no solo holidays after that, thanks to the precious fruit of my womb.

Speaking of which, a year later, sitting by a window, watching the rains pour down, the skies dark with thunder, and feeling a sudden sure sharp kick in my swollen stomach. Yes, the child decided to make his presence felt to much drama and thunder and lightning splitting the dark sky. Appropriate, I think in retrospect.

The rains pouring down, the news filtering in that the trains have stopped running, the roads are flooded, and all I can see from the window is a swell of brown muddy water slowly rising in the building compound. And the child is down with a fever, and I am beyond panic, I am hysterical. The husband is out of town. The driver is on leave. And sure enough it happens, the child goes into convulsions, and I run down, with him jerking in my arms, begging and pleading with taxi wallahs to take us to a hospital. His body goes limp, he had fainted. I didnt know that then, I was howling like a mad woman. I didnt want to think what I was thinking. No one agrees to take us. The roads are all flooded, they say. Save one kind soul. Thank you, Sardarji. Wherever you are, may the lord bless you and keep your children in good health.

Another day. The same year. A day no Mumbaikar will forget ever. 26 July 2005. I am in town, a good distance away from home in the far suburbs, and suddenly, the clouds literally burst on us. I can only see a black curtain of rain through the window while I continue my interview in my best professional manner. The husband starts calling frantically. Come back, soon. The roads are flooded over. We set out. The traffic crawls. Inch by inch. Afternoon turns into evening. Evening turns into night. I am stuck. The water laps at the windows of my Ikon. I was lucky, I didnt realise I could have been locked in and gased dead if the autolock had jammed. I spent the night at a friends place enroute. I barely slept. My child was home, just out of the hospital. I began walking at six am. Two minutes into the walk I realised I couldnt walk in chest high water with stilettoes and chucked them off. And walked barefoot. And like a woman possessed. I walked from Santacruz to Kandivali. I reached at 1.30 pm. Barely seven hours after I’d set off. I’d walked through washed away roads, pulled myself through makeshift rope bridges across flooded in roads, walked past floating corpses of bloated buffalos. The phone lines were down. The husband was going mad with worry. He had literally swum home the previous night. The water levels had crossed the level of our compound wall, and the area had been cordoned off by the police. He just jumped in and swam through. Ex-national level swimmer. The child was safe. The anticonvulsants had to be administered in precise dosage, at precise timing. My feet were bleeding, cut in a million places. I didnt feel the pain, just the unsspeakable, breathless joy of holding my child, safe and in good health.

And now, sitting in my bedroom, in my new home. Watching the breath taking expanse of sky and cloud battling with each. A luxury in this space starved city, where even glimpses of the sky are rationed out. Holding my son in my lap. And pointing out imaginary figures in the clouds. Here a lion, there a whale, there a dinosaur. And seeing a magical kingdom of myth where earlier I had only been able to see prosaic cumulus clouds.

Do I love the monsoon? I do. It is too much of a season of raw fury and unpredicatability not to love. And plus, I have been raised on a diet of Bollywood romance in the rains. How can I not love it? Anyone else love this season, despite it?

And so the 100th post comes up

I normally sleep with my curtains drawn open. My bed is right next to the french windows, and I get an uninterrupted view right upto Aksa, and a thin sliver of sea after kilometers of hutments, creek, coconut trees, etc, winks back at me. On some lovely mornings, I can see the moon sink slowly into the sea, while the sunrays start staining the sky. Yes, I am an early riser. Six, six thirty. Max seven am. On school days, five fortyfive. The most beautiful moment of the day is when I open my completely myopic eyes, and fumble around for my glasses, and then look out at the view. Its been eight months now, and never fails to take my breath away.

This morning though, it made me positively asthmatic. I could see nothing. A thick fog, and a black sky. And sheets of water pouring down, and I could see the patches where the rain was pouring down, and the patches of the city around me where it was still dry. The sky was dappled with early morning rays fighting with dark stormy monsoon clouds fighting to discharge their swollen selves. I sat up and gasped at the sheer beauty of the view, and poked the husband who continued snoring. I ran out into the balcony, to feel the sheets of rain lashing me mercilessly, and the force of the wind almost throwing me back against the door.

Yes, the monsoons are here. And I spent all of last evening taking down my bamboo chiks, taking in my sofas and seatings, and stools. Arranging my pots and plants so they wouldnt fall down with the sheer gale force of the wind after one beautiful blue pottery one flew down and broke into heartbreaking shards. And all through doing that, I grumbled about the inconvenience of the rains. And where on earth was I going to find the place to store all this stuff within an already stuffed to the gills place.

This morning I forgave the monsoon for it all. Humbled abjectly, by its fury and its grace, I knew know why poets burst into poesy when faced by its sheer beauty. I could see the waves of the shimmery sea writhing in rage, the clouds racing past, the wind drilling holes into my ears.

And the surreal darkness that comes with black clouds covering the horizon, with the intermitted rays of sunlight fighting through was a scene straight out of The Lord of the Rings, a fantastical world, filled with mystery and magic. Where everyday silhouettes were erased and the fury of the rains obliterated boundaries.

Alas. No more walks in the park.

And a happy monsoon to you too.

 

One doesnt fall off the wagon with grace

Okay, will admit it. Two months of sheer gluttony have happened. In my excuse, I happened to be on holiday. And a lot of eating out has happened. And I am a woman who believes in doing justice to a meal. After all what better way to compliment the chef than to eat so much that you need to be dragged away from the table with a horsecart and a pulley.

Therefore, I have now, post the monthly visitation, reconciled to the beastly fact that them jeans arent buttoning up because my waistline is not bloated due to water, but nice and firm with unjiggly excess corpulence lovingly curled up and snoring in my cells. Or between my cells. Or wherever them damn things curl up and hibernate until a famine comes along to activate them into burning themselves up. I didnt not take up biology for nothing. I dont have a brain for these things.

I have committed all the crimes possible for one who purported loud and hard to all who could hear, and all who could not, that she was one a diet and exercise routine and was determined to lose five kilos come hell or highwater, so there. Well, hell and highwater, might have come around but dont think those five kilos are going anyway. If any, I see them calling their friends and relatives around the hips for a gathering of the clan that will whoosh me from J Lo butt to Rubenesque proportions. And no one wants to paint Rubenesque proportioned ladies anymore. They’re so out of fashion, its depressing. Never mind ALL those ads with round tubby ladies pouting seductively and pretending to be glamourous and seductive, they actually look so sad and trying so hard, that I put my head between my hands and weep. What have I sunk to? To actually flip past a Gas ad and look hard at the ALL ad.

So breakfast, lunch and dinner has happened. Regular eating out has happened. Eating of sweets has happened. Cakes and Pastries. Yes, maam. Bread sneakily wound back on my plate. Actually, it takes a good amount of self control not to digress from your diet if you are being guest in hospitable Indian home situation, where refusal of food is considered the worse possible offence, with only spitting on your host’s face, and making off with the family silver pipping it to the post.

And then the urge to sample the best fare of the eateries in the pleasant city one visited. I think I should enter restaurants with a sign on me that says “Will eat for food” and maybe they could put a fence around me and charge people good money for the spectacle.

So here I am, two months down the line. And the scale still stuck firmly where it was when I left. And the little oohing and aahing I did during my holiday and when I weighed myself and found two miraculous kilos had evaporated from my frame has been put to pay, with the eating I did in compensation. Am not going to tell you where I am right now. But suffice to know, it isnt a place with the cheerleaders.

Went shopping with young teenaged girl the other day, with a waist that one hand of mine could encircle and shopkeeper faints when I ask him for knee length folded capri denims. I hurriedly reassure him, the clothing is required for said young teenaged girl with waist…whatever, and he mopped his brow hurriedly. And then added sweetly, “Madam, aapke liye kurti dikha de?”

With the heavens having delivered such a brutal message, I walked close to one hundred kilometers trying to delete all the messages in my phone inbox, but the scroll button died on me before the messages got over. Therefore, taking this to be another sign from heaven, I went right back home and wolfed down a bowl of kheer.

Asked the husband plaintively in the dark of the night, “Do you still find me attractive?” He snored in response, it sounded like a yes. And I went to sleep, content.

Who am I to dissect whether a snore sounded like a yes, or a no, if it indeed did sound like a yes with a nod.

When do you become retro?

The young girl, her Ipod on, the earplugs in, blasted Nothings Gonna Change My Love for You. I sat next to her in the car, and listened in. And began humming along.

She looked up in surprise. “Wow, Kiran maami. You know this song? Its retro.”

I smiled back. “Darling child. I am retro.”