Laurel or Hardy?

Personally, I have nothing against Laurel, you see. I would be the first one to admit that he was one of the best comedians of his time and more than a match for Hardy. Who, in their right minds, could contest the fact that this ‘thin and chubby’ duo was a riot on the screen? But behind the laughing eyes and waddling legs, did Hardy hide a truckload of hurt? Did anyone ever stop to think how the fashionably-thin Laurel might have made our flabby Hardy feel?

You may think that I am crying wolf when there isn’t even a trace of a puppy around but trust me, I have my reasons. As a fellow chubster (just because MS Word underlines this word in red doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, ok?), I feel like I can speak for all the Hardys of this world and tell you that it is a major pain in the you-know-what to be constantly surrounded by thin people.

I am not saying that thin people are bad. Definitely not. They may very well have a small golden heart inside their very petite bodies. It is just that, unwittingly, by their mere presence, they give us chubsters a huge complex and as God knows, we can very well do without anything huge, if you can catch my drift.

Take my case, for example. I happen to live in a town where all the women enjoy eating air for the main course and delight in drinking water for dessert at every meal. If it were up to them, without any qualms, they will rewrite the secret code to open Aladdin’s treasure caves to say ‘LETTUCE’ and then what will happen to poor Aladdin?

Now as one who salivates over a bowl of rasam rice for breakfast, I fail to understand how soy nuts can be appealing to anyone first thing in the morning. Fine, as long as you are at it, why not eat a nice cup of those soy nuts? Why count them every morning to eat exactly 6? And if you eat 8 instead of 6 one morning by mistake, is that any reason to call poison control? Seriously, if you are planning to relocate to my town for any reason and your daily lunch/dinner menu does not include a bowl of colorful leaves, do reconsider. You will thank me later and I will tell you why.

When I first moved into this town, I mistook all the inhabitants to be refugees from Somalia. It was an honest mistake really. I had never before seen anyone else walking around with bones jutting out of the skin like that. My heart bled for their misfortune and determined to do my part as a Good Samaritan, I hosted many parties in the hope of feeding my neighbors and friends with my no fat-spared cooking. But my plan was a big, fat flop. It was the same story at each party. One look at the long row of my wickedly tempting food trays, these folks would whip up their calculators and get busy. The minute the calorie count crossed zero, they would pretend that the food was e-coli infected and happily go back to their air and water diet.

So I gave up and switched to Plan B. If the town wouldn’t fatten up, then I would have to slim down, I thought. After all, I didn’t want to be the only Hardy in this town of Laurels. So I stocked my fridge with leaves and soups of all color. I even went out and got Quinoa. I was that desperate. Since that took care of the eating part of the Plan B, I next set out to buy a treadmill. Of course there is a gym less than a mile from my place but I didn’t want to take any chances, you see.

The shiny Nordic Track was finally hauled up the stairs and just as I got ready to jump on it and puff my way to health, I realized that something was missing. Ah, of course! What could motivate me more than a nice big TV mounted on the wall just across from my new machine? I know that my husband granted this wish of mine and installed a TV on that wall only because he was convinced of the sensibility of my plan and definitely not because he wanted to stop my nagging. Not at all!

Anyway, to make a very long story short(is it too late??), Plan B turned out to be an even bigger flop than Plan A. To say that the sensible diet plan was a complete disaster would be the understatement of the year. For every spoonful of the nasty Quinoa that I ate, I compensated by attacking the white rice with vengeance. For every green leaf that I had to push down my throat, I rewarded myself with a bowl of home-made spicy potato fries. For every cup of sugarless tea that I had to drink, I thumbed my nose at it with 2 glasses of kheer. Sigh, sigh…….......

With regards to the exercise equipment, it wasn’t a total waste after all. I am using the handle bars to organize and hang my thupattas these days so that is something, right? And about the TV, I realized that I liked watching it better from the bed anyway.

I have learned to forgive myself these days. Just like some people enjoy their air and water diet, I am fated to go through life as a Hardy. Philosophically speaking, some things are simply not in our control. As the French would say "Que sera sera".

So what are you? A Laurel or a Hardy?

New Year Resolution

Just four days in to the New Year, I am already wary of wishing anyone a ‘Happy New Year’ anymore. Not that I have anything against passing around some cheer and goodwill. Usually I am all for it. But due to some mysterious phenomenon, the birth of a New Year seems to whet folks’ curiosity and after returning my New Year wishes, they invariably want to know what my New Year resolutions are. Their happiness and health somehow seem tied to finding out the status of my prior years’ resolutions too. The conversation that follows this line of inquiry is, to put it mildly, quite embarrassing.

You see, I have the same single resolution each year. There hasn’t been any change to it over the past few years. I am steady and reliable that way. My modest resolution for every New Year is to lose enough weight to be able to recognize the image in the mirror. That is a perfectly plausible resolution, if you ask me. I am not aiming for world peace here, am I? Forget about fitting back into the wedding clothes. Forget about making the ‘Economy’ class seat in an airplane look roomier. All I want is to buy one dress each year that is not labeled ‘Jumbo’ size.

Let me tell you why weight loss beats all my other resolutions to the door each year. It does get a little annoying after a while to be singled out in a crowd and complimented on your chubby cheeks in social gatherings. Also, I don’t particularly care to have my cheeks pinched to see if they are as soft and round as the babies who model for baby food commercials on TV. Really! But my indignant scowls almost always go unnoticed so I have finally come up with an ingenious, if temporary, solution for this problem. I don’t knock on the door of a party without first sucking my cheeks in and holding them in to form artificial dimples. Lucky for me it fools them every single time.

I don’t know about you but I take my New Year resolution very seriously. Every January 1st, I go and enroll myself in the nearest fitness center. Then, I go out shopping and spend a week browsing the stores looking for a dashing new gym outfit. That being done, I sweat another week trying to find a water bottle that matches my new outfit. After all, there is no point looking shabby when you take an important step in your life. While at the store, I let the store clerk convince me that my feet have outgrown last year’s shoes so then I go home as the proud owner of a new pair of latest technology shoes that is said to melt pounds even while I am sleeping. You have to admit that I can use some extra help here.

I usually pack a lot of enthusiasm into my first few weeks at the Gym. This year, I got a head start by signing up for the gym membership the week before Christmas. The novelty of the new shiny machines keeps me going back. Every Cardio machine is tested and tried but the weight machines intimidate me so much so that I pretend an acute aversion to those monsters and dismiss them as unworthy of my attention. I compensate for this cowardice by walking around the living room couch 3 times a day with a 5 pound potato bag from the pantry. Do not underestimate your potatoes for they can muscle up your arms in no time. Every time I cross the bathroom to pick up a load of dirty laundry, I catch myself looking in the mirror, stretching my arm, straining to see the as yet invisible biceps and triceps. I have a hunch that I will watch those muscles bulge in just another week.

On top of puffing my way to health, every January, I also try to learn to eat all things that taste like sawdust. You may know these as ‘healthy’ food. It takes a lot of inner strength to sit in front of a plate of sickly-looking leaves that is termed ‘salad’ and not gag. It takes even more to push it down your throat. Determination, they say, is the key to stay on a healthy diet. And I have no shame in admitting that I have the determination of a dead earthworm. If you ask me, you have to be critically insane to choose a bowl of oatmeal or a salad over a bowl of hot steamed white rice and a cup of spicy sauteed vegetables.

And there lies the secret to my failed New Year resolutions. But this year I am determined to let this farce play out at least until end of February before I shelve it to be pulled out and reused next year.

Happy New Year to all of you. May the New Year bring good health and laughter to you and all your dear ones.

-Meena Sankaran