If bodies are temples, mine would be the sort that’s had no worshipers for a few centuries, is falling into disrepair, and needs large and concerted efforts to restore it to former magnificence.
My trousers no longer fit. Wait, that’s not accurate. At no point of time in the last four years have my trousers ever fit. But in the first three years of my bachelors this was because they were too loose. And you can blame that on lowest-cost hostel food cooked by a bunch of Nepalians.
Now, though, they’re too tight. Far too tight.
This is because for the past one year I have been eating out much more than I did before. Also, I’ve become addicted to Nutyumz- peanuts coated in fried besan flour, for the uninitiated. And eating like a pirzewinning pig during the winter vacations didn’t exactly help either. One night, after having a regular dinner- two paranthas, dal, sabzi of some sort, dahi, and gaajar ka halwa, I went on to eat half an 8 inch pizza, the better part of a calzone, and half a serving of cheese garlic bread. And that was just one night.
But mostly it’s due to eating dinners out with Gutri for the past semester. Gutri’s vegetarian, so I was constrained to order only vegetable dishes whenever I was going out with him. In the process, I became addicted to cream. Methi malai matar, jalfrezi sabzi, navratan korma, and all those other preparations that are considered incomplete in Patiala unless they’re floating in a sea of malai.
To exacarbate matters- if that’s the spelling I’m looking for- since third year I’ve been using rickshaws instead of walking. So, I haven’t even been burning up all that malai I’ve been taking in.
But enough is enough now. Now, I’ve start walking again. And I’m pleased to report that this past week my cargos don’t dig in the way they used to. There’s a way to go yet.
Besides the Battle of the Bulge, there’s another disturbing sign. One of the bristles in my upper lip region has turned white, in defiance of conventions, which states that your head goes gray first, and then your face follows.
Now, my head is as black and comely as it ever was. Unlike my brother’s, which is thinning as well as graying, but that’s another story. But I have this annoying little white bristle, scarcely noticeable from a distance, but which sticks out like a Lunar magnetic anomaly whenever I look in a mirror. Bah.
I blame this on passive smoking. No more hanging out in Trehan’s room from now on. Hopefuly it’ll turn out to be a freak, a stray incident.
I have a lab in half an hour. I must rush.