Back to Square One

For as long as I can remember, I have always been more 'gifted in proportion’ than my sibling or my kit and kin.
I was the apple of everybody’s eye.
The cute chubby baby, who grew up so fast.

Apart from teasing me by pulling my cheeks; biting into my arms; making me stand on one foot in the palm of their hands; challenging me to prove my love by not giggling ,when they tickle me;
just almost everybody , especially my aunts and uncles liked to feed me:)

From being a chubby baby, it become ‘baby-fat teen'. Till my early teens, it was still plain-sailing.

College years- That’s when all hell broke lose.

The baby fat is no fad at all. Being fat or even being slightly overweight ( to put it mildly ), was no less than disgusting, loathsome, repulsive to the aesthetic sense, and spells out an ‘unkempt’ personality.

That’s when my battle against the bulge begun.

Fortunately, I was an active kid and thus, a sports crazy teen. I was into basketball (maybe to the eye, I looked like one myself), volley-ball, TT, tennis, discuss-throw, shot-put and even for sometime I resorted to football with the guys.

Innumerable times I had missed the school-bus cause I was late from soccer practice.
In fourth standard, my grades suffered.
Hanging out with the soccer gang, my vocabulary turned colorful. It forced my mom to use the stick.

But all was in Vain. I never became a ‘Perfect 10’.

Then I turned to the gym. Since a gym-membership would burn a hole in my parents’ pocket, I used the homegrown gym of some of my health –freaks friends. In their limited wisdom, they taught me ‘weight training’ and I ended up looking like a baby-female- ArnoldJ
Still I carried the look with as much grace as possible.

In my 12th standard, the pursuit of academics was a priority. So for sometime, sporting activities disappeared from my itinerary.

Degree years came along. The lively spirit of my friend Pooja and the ‘call of the fields’ more enticing than a ‘mechanics session’ in the classroom, I was back. Pooja and I, woke up two of our 4th year seniors daily every dawn; and forced them at gunshot, to teach us the trick of the trade, in Lawn Tennis.

But I remain the same. The same healthy, full-figured, comely lass, who hid behind a boyish demeanor.

By then I had given up all hopes that ‘being active is the answer to a fit and thin frame’. When I hear or read so called exercise gurus and nutritionists, I casually look away. To me what they say is just passing fads. Today they say something, tomorrow they mouth something else. Today a banana is a source of good nutrition; tomorrow it’s bad for slimming.

In no time I became financially independent. I could afford gym-membership. But, I was no longer a believer.

The marketing efforts of VLCC managed to catch my interest.. Yes, I was duped. I paid them a fortune for telling me what to eat ( I am more of an expert on nutrition than their nutritionists);and for wrapping me with a vibrating belt to make me sweat!

By this time, I have lost all faith on what is called ‘the done-thing’.

It took a nice gentleman, whose breakfast shop I frequented, in the by-lanes of Coles Road, Bangalore, to make me laugh it all out. He jolted my senses when he said, ‘You look the way you feel. Skipping mayonnaise or an egg sandwich does not increase your worth. My wife skips dinner or lunch just like u. It doesn’t matter to me how she looks then and how she looks now. She remains beautiful to me’. Sweet, touchy and romantic. That gentleman made my day.
Moral of the story is: I am back to where I began. But, with a different outlook…

I avail the office gym to beat the sedentary life-style, the lethargy, to make my heart younger and my mind smarter.
The ‘Perfect 10’ is now a distant memory.

I have never been more at peace or happier.