The Siren call of the Parantha

The forbidden fruit was not the apple. Nope you’re mistaken it was the parantha which keeps on saying take me, take me. It’s manna and literally the bread from heaven that miraculously saves us not from wilderness but just is the comfort food that engulfs and satiates one. This is what has happened to me, and the miraculous pile up of calories and woe beside before I know it’s summer.

My spring body is extinct or lost in transition it just refuses to recognize that its spring and everything is in full bloom and it should follow the norm. I think my eternal clock just skipped this part and it’s become elusive and is spring roll now. Summer heralds the arrival of all things white, floaty and flowing and one starts to show off one’s body in things that are getting tighter and smaller and are for the body fit woman of today.

Methinks, there is a hidden conspiracy between the clothes manufacturer’s and the dieticians. They are making everything smaller and I am frantically trying to consult a dietitian. And, every time I try to call her she is busy somewhere else and the receptionist in her thin squeaky voice says next Wednesday.

Is Wednesday an auspicious day, I wonder? Till then I have searched Google Aunty / Bhenji anything to make me lose the kilos that crept in slowly and steadily as my love affair with paranthas is ongoing. Its been going on for a while along with books and coffee. I think the deadly combination of these three has got me ready with spring rolls and my summer body as all the billboards proclaim is sort of missing in action this year.

Nor, do I have a magic wand nor do I have a reducer so I was goggling away and asking everyone and sundry to help me with their tips.

No one, I mean no one let’s you into the secrets; however all I got was bizarre answers, from soya biscuits to water with weird ingredients to speed up my metabolism and eating the cucurbits family by the kilos. All that one gains is more toilet time, and the pressure to walk so that one meets the quota of the fit bit steps so set. It’s like one is app’fied to live, eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom, take steps, be lulled to sleep with soothing music, and everything is monitored.

I am trying all this and am eating this dry roti that is a mix of all the grains one can think of; no one can be more demographically secular than me but the lure of the siren aka the parantha is too strong to resist. It’s just like the mermaid call that made all the ships sink and they took the treasure, here it’s my body!

Punjabis, swear by the simple parantha eaten with aam ka achar, nothing comes close to this simple pleasure and we all grew up on this before the pancake, crepe invasion but suddenly its muesli, oats, and dry brown bran infused multigrain toast thanks to the cholesterol, high blood pressure, stressed out me.

Today’s society is so cruel and unkind that we judge the other by the shape of their body, the skin, color and shape. If one is not the image as proclaimed by the media or projected as the ‘it’ image of the western wearing streaked hair, branded person you are not modern enough. Heaven forbid, your hair is in a bun you are categorized as a bhenji. WE are a society in a hurry that pre-judges, and labels and categorizes just because one is fat and isn’t thin or isn’t fair. Yesterday, I read the best line be like the gulab jamun it didn’t use fair and lovely to become rosgullas.

We need to accept ourselves, just the way we are (I did with my spring rolls and stubbornly defiant white hair) and then we can be tolerant of each other.

Remember ladies and gentleman, the parantha isn’t at fault its our outlook that is!  The lovingly cooked, maa ke haath, golden brown parantha understands when nothing else does! And, abou those kilos ,it doesn’t matter just get that kurta stitched a bit looser so you can breathe and not be like the mannequin that just doesn’t exist ! Live a little, smile a bit more , and go slow on eating the parantha , relish it and the pieces will all fall into place just like a puzzle .