The Diet

My family, my friends, and acquaintances everyone I know is obsessed about one thing in Punjab and the best part is it’s not what you are thinking. As Punjabis, we think of things apart from politics, putter –moh, zameen, daaru, loud and crass Punjabi music that is a blot on what was the romance of my culture. In fact, my dear we have moved from the madness that is in our blood; politics. I constantly read face book updates, tweets, whatsapp messages that extoll the power of Captain Sahib, the rise of the underdog and the alliance of BJP – Alkalis. I don’t want to start the next bloodshed here.

The current obsession that we all share is as it is summer is dieting and to get that summer body ready. My cousins and we all have these bizarre conversations and none of them are made up, where on whatsapp we all lament about the weight being stuck at a particular number. And, one of them will curse the thinner ones that may they get fat and none of the clothes fit! Its quite interesting, how some days we all seem to have long and longer conversations about the weighing scale being possessed and not moving a gram down a. And, no matter how much exercise, gymming, spinning or just plain old walking would make a difference. All cities, mind you in Punjab, have a different dress code. If you belong to Chandigarh, you’re dressed in one of those horrifying neon colored spandex lycra dri-fit track bottom and a brighter pair of shoes with hair piled up strategically in a just woken up form the bed look with a perfect tendril coming down! One teams this with a designer t-shirt and we go through the power walk. It is important to walk right, the power walk and not the aaram se comfortable walk we walk.  These women could all join the armed forces, by the way. Such smart ness! Then, we have the yoga fanatics who swear by the power of yoga that unites the mind, body and soul and magic stronger than Dumbledore shaves off all those pesky inches on the waist and voila! We all have those super sleek bodies. They all have a great punishing, tyrannical regime, and all accomplish the look at the world upside down pose and do a surya namaskar and swear that they are lighter and calmer, stress free than the next person which lasts only till the maid doesn’t come. If she misses a day, stress free does go out of the window.

Then, we have the gym freaks, which first have to spend crazy amounts to wear the right equipment, from under armor to dri fit to sweat more and who all have such personal trainers and are more flexible than the cousins from who we all evolved. Darwin had no clue on us, the 21^st century humans especially the fairer creatures.

We love to diet, follow all sorts of crazy diets, eat oats, drink horrible dishwater soups, and gorge on bananas with milk just to shave off the kilos. Also, the crazy GM diet, the whole industry we support of dieticians some how make you drink cold coffee, some the flavored water, some the hot lemon cinnamon water, and some ask you to follow the Mediterranean, Italian diet that your poor system that was brought up on the basic egg toast, parantha, missa roti is confused by the sandwich and the miracle seed that we add more weight rather than loosing it.

Nothing helps, as much as keeping the mouth shut, for weight loss and for a happier life. However, we follow all adages, give crazy amounts of money, follow bizarre exercise patterns, and push our body to such extreme measures to look good and to not be obese. The family by the way also discusses another past time, the quiet secret which we do not talk about, but was made into an award winning movie, the mysteries of the bowels and how it makes us weigh more and less there of. Come on don’t be shy, it just happens.

As I was writing, a dear friend sent a great joke. It goes as this, ‘ photographer: say cheese.

The South Delhi girl: Can I Say oats? I am dieting.

And that is how my dear the pout was invented!

Society, the media, the whole rigmarole that exists is so dependent and has become driven to projecting an image of perfection. Be it the fair and lovely skin, the perfect marks, the perfect job, the perfect body, the statuesque figure, that we all are so driven by this look good industry. For a fact, as Punjabis, it is nearly impossible to fit into western clothes that I think In Asia were made not for the large built like us but for petite sizes that so confuse us and then the whole cycle starts again. We have been brought up and led to believe that wearing Indian clothes or the salwar kameez makes us look not so modern or westernized or with it. I had one lady ask me very seriously in a horrified, wide open eyed look that ‘ how come I only wear Indian suits?’ I had to console the lady and hold her hand and tell her that I did pretty ok and was surviving without fitting myself into a pair of jeans and a shirt that would somehow explain to the world my progressive modern outlook!

The world needs more open minds, empathy and compassion and less worry about what we wear and how we look!