its about shape not size.....really???

Life is so unfair! You are happily skipping your way through it when one fine day, suddenly you notice yourself looking a little ‘healthy’!!! Us Indians know of course that ‘healthy’ when used to describe a person is really not the positive term you think it is. It is entirely negative!!! It is in fact the polite way for all the auntyjis to tell you that you are faaaat!!!Or else they will say ‘ab achhi lag rahi ho!!!’…..ohh boy that’s a killer for sure!!! It means you have put on at least ten kilos and need to take drastic measures like concealing yourself in the attic for the rest of your life!

It’s unfair and it has a nasty sense of humor too! It inflicts this curse on women desperately trying to hang on to their thirties…..their body suddenly starts to play mind games with them. First the weight creeps up like a stealthy stalker…you notice it when it first makes its appearance in your photos. Wait!! is that the beginning of a double chin??? No wayyyy!!!!Next the jeans become way too snug but no come on it doesn’t mean we are getting fat….the fit wasn’t too great anyway you think and are so happy when Levis says ‘it all about shape not size’!! Hats off to the creator of that one line, that guy knows more about women than they know about themselves. What a rip off! So we are clinging to straws but only just!

Still all is not lost. You haven’t ever had a problem losing extra weight so you put on a smug smile and cut your meals. You wait for the kilos to shed. And you wait some more……. All of a sudden the same diet that worked wonders for you refuses to come out of its hibernation. You add a couple of more exercises to your routine, play your gut out at badminton, pay up the membership fees at at least two gyms…you jog…you run…you wheeze and yet the weighing scale grins triumphant. Not an ounce is lost.

If that isn’t enough the only topic at dinners is weight loss and whether so and so is looking bottom heavy or stick thin. For heavens sake is it necessary to discuss things like this while you are reaching for a plate? Its little solace of course that the thin ones get flack too. They are alternatively too thin, looking haggard and have lost their glow. Fat lot of good the darned glow is doing me I say!! Aah it’s a cruel world out there….every morsel sticks in your throat as your inbuilt calorie meter ticks and whirs!!! Add to the fact that your buddy and gym partner is giving you a glare which would melt the arctic ice, as you reach for that piece of cake. So you try munching on carrot sticks that taste like sawdust instead and look on enviously at the lucky devils with magical metabolism which lets them eat what they will. I mean how unfair is it that there are women out there who eat like a horse, haven’t heard of exercise and are slim sylph-like??

You swing between I-don’t-care-I-love-my-shape to….. please-somebody-stop-me!! You collect all the diets possible…..the GM, the Atkins, the cabbage soup, the juice diet….you name it and you have it. You gulp down soups by the buckets, eat every completely tasteless health food on this earth, try to live on water and fresh air but to what end? You end up a crabby, ill-tempered version of your former self! You wage a losing battle against your appetite which seems determined to best you. And you are left wondering why is it that we have made massive leaps on all fronts, progressed technologically, invented gadgets which have made our lives better……yet there is nothing to help us get back in shape. And for all of you who want to pipe up at this point to mention the miracle drinks, shakes, sauna belts…..get a life people!. Is it too much to ask for better tasting food that doesn’t pile on the pounds. Imagine a negative calorie cheeseburger for example……it burns your calories while you eat it!!!Or a dieter’s chocolate fudge? Somebody just tell me why oh why can’t health food taste like chocolate cake??

VOYEURS AHOY!!!!

                                         

Hate it, love it but you just can’t ignore it. That juicy bit of gossip. That odd bit of scandal. You may put on your oh -so -superior look and try to walk past but it will linger on in your mind. What is it about other peoples business that is so tempting? Why have we become so addicted to minding other peoples business rather than our own?

Call it a boon or a bane but since the advent of the technologically enhanced era things are really looking up for the voyeur!!! Gone are the days when privacy was still an option and scandalous gossip was restricted to movie magazines. Today all and sundry are out in their Sunday best washing dirty laundry on national network! And do we love it .We are horrified by the lengths people go to on reality TV but yes ,we did watch it in order to be as horrified as we profess we are!!!! The most talked about reality shows are the ones which have the participants humiliating themselves by fighting with and abusing the other participants on the show. They make a public spectacle of themselves. The TRP’s go soaring. The producers are laughing all the way to the bank. The audience is glued to their tellies and lapping it all up. Everyone’s happy!

The net surfer has found a new vocation too. He can happily trash people and their views without ever coming out in to the open. He sends hate mails leaves rude comments and generally makes a nuisance of himself safe in the confines of his online name. He gives the term freedom of expression a whole new meaning.

 The new networking sites are a voyeur’s paradise. You can look into people’s lives from the comfort of your home. Relationship changes are advertised across the entire community. You can be ‘engaged’,’ married’, ‘in a relationship’ or stick to ‘it’s complicated’ when you don’t know where you stand!!! You want to break up and make sure everyone knows?? Well you just change your status to single and it’s flashed onto every one of your friends news feed. A single click is all that’s required. The voyeur’s never had it so good!

 Even as we raise our eyebrows every time a reality show degrades a participant further we have to admit we are part of this circus too. As spectators sitting on the sidelines and watching every bit of it with avid curiosity. Oh yes we will make all the appropriate noises, sympathise even. But we are guilty of enjoying a certain degree of malicious pleasure at someone’s misfortune. We are the voyeurs behind the mask.