ALL FOR THAT HUNK LOOK

I've always thought that exercise is a bit over-rated, and that it does you more harm than good. Every time I go for workouts, I think it's one of those dirty secrets that only a select group of powerful people somewhere know, like those people who apparently know that Jesus is coming back (a week from Tuesday, apparently), or that group that ordered the Kennedy assassination. I think there's a group like that for exercise as well, made up of people like Arnold Schwarznegger and co, who meet once a week to laugh at people like me who go on three kilometer jogs and still have the highs  size of South America. They get together to eat pizza and the souls of small children, and they laugh at me, because deep down, they know exercise is bad for you.

Being a fitness freak and lack of entertainment in gooty made me to enroll in the gym of local officers club which I ve zeroed after a long tiresome search, before the daily dose of protein shakes and oat meals , it is the same everyday, stretch like Jane Fonda on the perverted bars, run like Forrest Gump on thread mill with other  folks around you smelling like mountain goats. The gym here also boasts itself for having a sauna which is not a easy thing either, but it taught me empathy. Now I feel like what a potato feels inside a microwave oven, or how a shirt will feel inside a washing machine

.

The companions I got in this gym range from good to ugly, starting with the smelly goats herding toward the weights and make painful faces and equally painful sounds as though they were being sodomized. Hell, if it is so painful to lift that thing in the first place, why lift it at all.

And there is this woman who look like a “Helga” who comes to gym everyday with her dog. I call her “Helga”, because, that’s the name that crosses my mind when I think of an obnoxious, arrogant middle-aged woman. I think she considers herself good looking, well at least somebody did. The more I looked at Helga, the more I liked her dog.

Then there was this middle aged man whom I refer here as “Dick”. A formless being, his sole purpose in life was to come in and ogle at all the pretty woman at peak-time,all he do is to chat up all the women in the gym. For some strange reason, he used to work out in what one can call a “ monkey-cap”. It was like a condom pulled right over his head and he is a dick of highest order. You know those typical ones with the garrulous laughter and fake lecherous smile who laugh at all the wrong parts of the joke? That kind. May be he comes in just to see if all the machines are being worked optimally.

Then there is this “The Thing”. All bulged up, so stiff that he could have given a telephone pole real stiff competition. Sixty percent of his time was spent on looking at himself in the mirror and striking strange poses, twenty percent would be spent on grunting with weights, eighteen percent spent walking around and showing off his muscles and the balance two percent on going back to where he started. I wonder ,may be he eat rocks as food, as they also seem to have found their way into his head. His face is like a thoroughly beaten up jerry can and we could have used those arms as jacks for replacing a flat-Tyre. If we chopped off his legs, they could have been used as beams to hold up two municipality buildings of gooty, built by cheap contractors, to prevent the roof from caving in. He can be practically categorized as a “construction equipment”  and so he is “The Thing”

 I have changed my dietary pattern also . oats are in.  I am having so much of oats that I have no choice  but to stand and sleep at nights like a horse. Oats do that to you; that’s why horses sleep while standing. The nuts and crackers made me think like a bird. The meals had to be high-fiber and if I couldn't get a high fibre meal, I should chew bed-covers and linen. Chicken and mutton are a strict no-no and I am living life at a discount.

With all these efforts, hopefully,  I could turn into my new shape like that dude from “Avatar” before I move out of this place

Effect of Toofan(zanzeer)

*Krishna + Crowd wait outside screening room for 11 45 pm showing of Get Shudh desi romance*

*11 45 becomes midnight.*

*Midnight becomes 12 15*

Us: "Uh. Excuse me. Why won't you let us in yet."

Inox Staff: "Actually sir, room is being cleaned."

Us: "For this long?!"

Inox Staff: "Um. Actually sir, Toofan (Zanzeer) was going on, so cleaning will take little more time."

ON BEING FAT, OR PRETTY

This article written by my friend on ZYNGA , copy-pasted as it is, with her permission and concealed her identity on her request.... somehow felt familiar

On Tubby Legs and Heavy Hearts

I watched a video on Upworthy today. A video about Dustin Hoffman on his character in the film ‘Tootsie’. I’m sure it was shared somewhere on your Facebook walls or Twitter timelines.

If not, here it is — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPAat-T1uhE

Watch it again, if you haven’t already.

Now, I haven’t blogged here in a very, very long time, but today, this moved me to immediately pen down my thoughts.

Mr. Hoffman, at one point in the video, says he couldn’t believe that he wasn’t more attractive when he was made-up to look like a woman. For me, this hit the proverbial nail right on its narrow-minded head.

I’ve struggled with weight and self-esteem issues for as long as I can remember. Apart from being a skinny toddler, I’ve always had the chubbiest cheeks, the tubbiest legs and the dimples on my elbows that so many kids in school seemed to lack.

Back then, it was cute. I was pampered and smothered with love. People would stop my mum on the street and comment on how adorable I was.

Now, as I face the problem of being overweight, it’s not so cute anymore.

I have no excuses to make for my weight, and I don’t choose to look for any. Simply put, I love food. I love everything that is bad for me and I lack the willpower to say “no” on a regular basis. But I don’t think that’s stopped me from leading a happy, relatively active lifestyle. I travel a fair bit, I run around for meetings all day and I rarely turn down an invitation to go dancing. The problem is that I’m constantly afraid of what I look like.  If I dress up at home before a night out, I feel like I am pretty, until I step out on to the street. I look at the dresses women around me wear, and the fact that they can flaunt parts of themselves that I’d never dream of inflicting upon the general public.

Many times, I’ve tried to combat this feeling. I’ve worn knee-length shorts to Bandra and received strange looks on my way. I’ve worn an off-shoulder top and been asked to change, by my parents.

I’ve been out with friends and heard people say, “Dekh dekh, kitni moti hai”, as I’ve walked past them.

I’ve run into people from school all over the city, and a fair number (not all) of them have said the exact same thing – “You’ve not changed at all! Still fat!”

Once, I’ve been told that I must “be so funny because I have to compensate for my weight.”

It’s come to a point where I recently refused to go to an event that asked you to “Flaunt Your Back”, partly because I was terrified that I’d be the only one who wasn’t able to bring herself to actually do it.

I’ve always had skinny friends, and, when we go shopping, I stand and look at jewellery while they rummage through the latest collections, because there’s no way I’ll get clothes my size.

I go to a tailor to get a lot of my clothes stitched, and I never tell people that because I’m embarrassed. Instead, I’ll “forget” where that shirt is from, or say, “My mother bought it.”

My favourite instance, though, was when someone who used to follow this very blog many years ago, got talking to me and asked if we could meet. I agreed, semi-reluctantly, and we went to a neighbourhood coffee shop. I was having a good hair day, and I wore my nicest top and jeans. I reached five minutes early and occupied a prime spot. 

As I waited for this person (Let’s call them “A”) to show up, I nervously checked if my kajal was smudged. just then, someone who i suspected could be “A” walked in, looked at me and walked out.

I was too nervous and shy to say anything, so I sat and waited. “A” sat at a nearby table. We both ordered cups of coffee, drank them and left, without saying a word to each other.

I messaged “A” later that night, after hours of toying with my phone and dealing with feelings I was unable to completely process. The reply to my question, “Where were you?” was, “I came in and saw you. But you were very different from what I expected. So I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can be friends.”

Instead of letting it go, I pushed for a clarification. In no uncertain terms, “A” messaged back – “You’re too fat. I’m sorry.”

Now, I’m not saying this to garner pity or anything of the sort. I’m not looking for you to say, “Awwww, you poor thing”, nor am I pretending that there’s nothing I can do about this.

But this isn’t my point. 

As I watched this video, it hit me – I’m conditioned to believe that, just because I’m overweight, I am not beautiful. I am not someone you’d chat up in a bar, nor am I someone you’d claim to have a crush on.

It’s me, more than anything – I refuse to accept compliments under the guise of being coy. I immediately discount the fact that I could be remotely interesting to anyone, because, hey, look at me.

I am blessed to be surrounded by close friends who’ve never made me feel the pinch, so to speak. They’ll sit by quietly as we slowly suffocate to death due to lack of space in a rickshaw and move the table a little further away from the seat when I have to get up at a restaurant.

I guess, at some level, I’m just writing this to say, we all face this everywhere. No matter who we are and what we do, we will always find imperfections within ourselves – some obvious, some invisible to anyone else.

After watching this video today, I find myself sitting here with tears streaming down my face, because, even though so many years have passed, “A”‘s text still rings in my head every time I check myself out in a mirror, or look at photos of myself.

I will probably never feel beautiful or attractive. No matter how my body changes over the years, there will always be something to nitpick about, and, to be honest, I don’t know how I will ever combat it, and if I’ll ever be able to move past this negative body image.

It will always come as a genuine surprise when someone tells me they think I’m pretty, and I will never be able to positively respond to such a statement.

But, I will try. 

Will you?