Blissful gluttony

Never before India has become so health freak. At the dawn parks and roads are beaming with morning walkers. It seems the country has been caught up with new 'macho' figure mania, with each male dreaming to have six packs or ten packs whatever. Many college going boys are found roaming on the roads with chests pressed forward and byceps showcased in a tight Tshirts. There nothing wrong in yearning to be spotted .After all, it is the months' labour .Yoga has been rediscovered, with Baba Ramadev on T.V. with special focus on obesity, which many of us often fall flat to fight. Now we can find some one alternatively in every house doing kapala Bhastri. Not to mention about small time mushrooming yoga teachers. Every one belongs to a different school of teaching. Parks are roaring with laughing clubs. God alone knows whether these simulated smiles adding up to their well being. Each girl wanting to be "zero" sized( look at Kareen Kapoor for inspiration) some times literally surviving on "char pani puri",veggie burger or a slice of pizza with a bottle of aerated drink. No takers for traditional Idlis or Dosas among the horde of teenagers. During my long quest I came to know that with each grain of starch we are building an arsenal in our body ready to explode at any time, and with each drop of oil consumed we are drawing closer inch by inch to a hospital.

The day I wanted to join the crowd of health watchers, I went to a super market to buy a pack of sprouts. Next day helping with a cup of sprouts towards breakfast looked like heaven. With new found zeal I intended to buy bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, bracoli , lettuce to make my salad with a spoon of olive oil. The next door super market had only bell peppers, missing in tomatoes. With undaunted spirit I travelled upto a farwaway retail chain to fetch my braccoli. Retail chain unfortunately exhausted the stocks of these imported stuff , forced me to search for some other retail outlet only to find parched braccoli. No thing can stop me. As I paid handsomely to get few streaks of dehydrated bracoli my olive oil remained a distant dream.I was helpless. Though all the vegetables are rotting in my fridge I could not make my salad. Next day when I went to small kirana shop to buy my bread, to my surprise I found a bottle of olive oil. I was frightened at the very label. Mahalakshmi olive oil . I always imagined that olive oil is produced by some Spaniyards or Greek. Shop keeper assured me that it is of good quality. I decided to to buy it as it seemed I have to travel another 8 kilometers to find another.

I prepared my salad exactly how it has been explained in a televison programme. When I started eating it I noticed that it had a very pungent smell . I gulped it only to get a nauseating feeling . I decided that I should never add braccoli (a person no less than President of United States hated it too) I finished my dinner with a salad. At the end of the day when I calculated I found that my bowl of salad costed me Rs.150 (transportation charges included). Too expensive dinner to eat at home . By 9 O' clock in the night I felt very hungry . I forced my self to sleep to escape my hunger pangs.

Next day morning I woke up with lot of belching and bloated stomach. Still nothing can mar my determination. I continued with my breakfast consisting of sprouts, which left me hungry within half an hour. I drank 2 litre of water as I was told I can drink as much as I can. I found difficult to attend to my house hold chores, as I was increasingly feeling weak and tired. In addition my heavy stomach gave me strange feeling that I had a sort chemical factory in my belly.. Though I prepared something for the rest of my family, my food has been assuming great importance and taking away lot of time from me. For lunch I ate lots of parboiled vegetables sprinkling some rice over them. My evening snack of toast with a cup of diet milk tasted like a piece of tastelessbone. My dinner with a salad though minus braccoli did not go down very well. I skipped my night dose of sas bahu serial to sleep early. Alas! I never imagined that life could be so miserable.

I was advised all my family members to see a doctor with my loud belching and gastric irritation. He prescribed umpteen number 'before food' 'after food' tablets which only added up to my perils. My stomach started churning soon after I poped my tablets, as it followed the routine lunch of half boiled vegetabled with few rice flakes.By evening my situation deteriorated. My husband brought fresh vegetables into my house as I was not too well to shop. By the fall of night I prepared hot rice with a brinjal curry and dal only meant to be served to my family members. I wanted to check whether all the ingrients were added in right proportions. My first morsel tasted delicious with heavenly aroma. I continued few more servings and finally decided to cook additional quantum of rice. Oh! my stomach started singing merrily with it's regular dose of carbohydrates.

There ends my story of adventure with food. End of days' old deprivation. End of starvation.End of healthy eating. Hi ! By any chance is there any 'world food day' in the list of 365 days of some ascribed ' days' ? I want to celebrate it.