My new diet

There is something more important than taking selfies that has taken the country by storm especially everyone in Punjab, its even more important than the Coffee with Captain, Lassi with Jagmeet, Karah with Sukhbir; no no its not the depleting water cycles nor is it the IPl or the latest Fan jokes! Every fourth post is a tip how one can lose weight! It’s just not my fault that the trend these days is to wear clothes one size small. The fashion police want us to wear jeans one size small, look like stick insects, with t-shirts that barely cover the body! Even the suits in vogue these days require some kind of an androgynous body that is so not Punjabi!

How is one supposed to have legs that resemble stick insects out of Kung Fu panda, with missing thighs (oh the paranthas of my youth that have got stuck there) and a face that has more caves and contours than the Himalayas? Even, more is the strobing and contouring that makes all the girls look miraculously thin and have sharp cheek bones so as to rival Karenna kapoor Khan. The Begum sure has me in tizzy. Don to get me started on the hair!

It all started with a podcast / clip I happened to listen where I would drink cumin water in the morning, first thing and voila it got me thinking, imagine the wonder seeds, the common jeera but spoken with an accent would melt away all those tires and love handles I had. It just made me use the emoticon of being shy all the time. One told me that drinking hot lemon cinnamon honey water twenty minutes before sleeping would do the trick. The other told me of ginger slices, and cucumber bits all thrown in a bottle of water with freshly cut thin slices of lemon would sort of just melt the fat and I would be the svelte sexy that would look like a million bucks wearing the new dress from Zara!

Imagine if it was so easy. I think if I started a movement to walk from here to China to pick the green tea leaves, I would start a movement and would have a following more than Anna or Kejriwal. In fact I think that is the only answer to physically go pluck the tea and then only there would be a dent in the weight.

This lose a kilo mania is spreading and it has even taken my pind wali bibis in its embrace. They all walk so fast in the evenings, and collectively are a terror force to be reckoned with! There is enough dust accumulated in their paths as if they are a crowd of elephants charging. Pardon the comparison but the dust clouds do tell another story. The prices of lemon, ginger and cucumber are not driven by the output or the availability it’s the new fashion to sip flavored water in fancy glass bottles which is positively charged ionized make me happy water.

Let me tell you, its all bollocks! Politely borrowing from Captain Haddock, nothing works. The jeera water, lemon honey cinnamon hot water, green or white tea all fail in front of the spoon of butter I use every morning on my sookhi missi roti, nor does the particular brand of apple cider work. Maybe they want me to submerge myself in the vinegar so maybe my osmosis there might be an exchange of fat ! I guess that was needed , to get rid of the chubby Punjabi look. Its in the genes and not the jeans.

My love affair with chocolates has literally clogged everything leading to all these drastic, Mata hari type of binges to make the scale budge , but it ain’t happening.

However, I am still downloading newer recipes , eating all sorts of yellow , green ,red , purple vegetables , along with enough dark green leafy vegetables to start my own natural emission plant . No wonder , the gases are increasing in the atmosphere and we have such an important problem on our hands. The environmentalists haven’t even begun to consider this angle. May be , here in lies my genius and a Nobel Prize is in the cans.

However, as I get off my high horse and deal with fat that mysteriously makes the seam go tighter every day , and chocolate that lures me in like a seductive siren I have to drink my bland, horrible smelly green tea with a nose high up in the air. It wouldn’t do good for a mother to not set an example.. thus I suck it up and drink this wily concoction , to dissolve the fat for a clearer skin , faster metabolism and a quicker spring.

Lord, I sound like a commercial , but I guess it’s the hope till I get hold of a miracle elixir just like Swami Ramdev or Voldemort , till then I will splinch myself into my suits , flowing to look all thin and glamorous.

Human beings, then women

We all have our avatars, some days we all want to be a queen diva, some days we don the Tarla Dalal hat and start cooking as if the world is going to end and some days we just want to hibernate into a kiddie hole and disappear. And some days ones inner safai Devi surfaces and we become Kanta Bai and Nikki rolled into one possessing a demonic eye and microscopic vision to spot the cobwebs and speck of dust.

A woman has so many roles and we juggle constantly with them trying to fit into the roles of being a mother, daughter, sister, friend, caregiver, and lover all rolled into one. Always, we are cast in to a stereotype role, which is cast for us.

Do we ever get recognized for being a human being? Sadly, no even as I write half of them are going to shake their hands and say it’s a feminist tirade and would leave this reading half way and the other half would say she is on her periods. Typical male attitude that it is that time of the month. Its more interesting to read the next statement of the salwar wearing, slogan shouting deliver of the masses by Ayurveda’s and yoga, Baba Ramdev.

Do note, he wore a female outfit to abscond! When we are the other half, why is it so difficult for the world to accept us human beings? From the moment I am born (if I’m allowed to be born) most of my childhood is focused on gender based situations, play with dolls, wear pink what if I like blue? What if my brother wanted to play with dolls and I with the train set? Why are boys told not to cry? And we are soft and can shed a tear and be emotional. We stereotype and cast our children into these roles unintentionally and push them into these roles setting the note for the future years.

Even in the 21^st century, we still worry about women not being allowed into the temples to worship the goddesses. And some places they are not allowed just because they are on their menstrual cycle, a sign of their fertility. How do we become an endangerment to the sanctity to the society and the purity of the sanctum sanctorum? All the Gurus, religious scriptures say we need to control our thoughts, our inner most hidden dark dirty thoughts that are impure, and not the outer manifestations.

As we grow older, we are told don’t wear this, don’t venture out, don’t do this, dress demurely, not wear revealing clothes. Isn’t it our mindset than what we wear that reveals the impurity?

Every day we hear the repeated news of acid attacks, rapes, disfigurements and dowry deaths and just suicides. Why are we subjected to this? Just happens, is the shrug and we move on to other news. Yesterday, brave girls marched from NIT Srinagar in spite of the cowardly threats of rape and murder. Accolades should be given for this .

Till, we don’t educate our children from the primary level this vicious circle will keep on going, we will keep on stifling our girls at every step and we will keep on putting our boys on the pedestal and hoping for deliverance on their hands. Education is the only answer, to create awareness and to change the mindset that is crippling the society .

Treat us as equal , because its our birthright and not because you are giving us a favor.

Destroy the idea that men should respect women because we are their daughters , mothers , and sisters. Reinforce the idea that men should respect women because we are people.’