Fitness

A sweet brand

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Sudipto brought me sweets from Kolkata. Bengali sweets have made a major contribution to the build & single packs of my body. They are a craving beyond all material craving that the world can offer. And, as a close friend Sudipto understands !!!
This time too, they tickled the taste buds endlessly, leaving an indelible craving in the mind and and a near permanent addition to the hip. When the sweet was served, i spotted ‘MITHAI‘ engraved on it. My curious mind, examined each piece that was served. All of them carried this engraving. Why did they label a Mithai as Mithai, i wondered !


I thought of Nuclear Radioactive material which get labelled.
I thought of safety equipment which get labelled so. Hazardous chemicals get labelled.
Examples abound. You get the hint. Dont you !

But to see ‘Mithai‘ labelled as ‘Mithai‘, that too engraved on the sweet was a bit of an intrigue.
My mind worked overtime as thoughts ran in all directions as a fountain in bloom!

Did they think this sweet would be mistaken for rat poison or something ? Perhaps they wanted to label it in order to separate the mithai from the other genres of offerings from the store. Perhaps they wanted to have a sweet way to learning the English language during the years of the Raj, and it kind of stuck.

Such other sundry thoughts occupied my mind. And this was, long after the sweet rested for those fleeting moments on the tongue and was well on the way to be deposited on the hip (and god know s in which other body part )!

Little did i realist that the mystery would be solved in the stealth of the night, by the dim light of the refrigerator, just as i was giving in to a sweet pang. Or rather, the Bengali Sweet pang. Thats when i cared to read what was written on the box !

Mithai was the brand !

How neat ! It took me a while to figure that i had not thought of that option at all. A generic name for your brand name. It sure must be ringing in the cash registers if they were pioneers in the field. But why didnt i think of it ? Many facets of the human mind & its contours lie in its unseen whorls !

I have since made peace with myself, enjoying Mithai’s Mithai piece by piece.

Poles Apart.

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The last few weeks in the gym have been trying. Trying on the limbs. Trying on the mind. All that trying harder has simply meant harder effort & a focused mind. And no visible result.

Strategically placed on the walls, are photographs of some six pack or eight packs or their incremental variants. The enlarged images are supposed to give you inspiration. They, on the contrary, end up giving a huge complex !

The one huge pack that stares back at me from the mirror is firmly placed and has been built over the years. And that geography is not changing in a hurry ! Tectonic shits can happen with continents. But, i guess, this is one body mass that has far deeper roots.

Fleeting glances have rested on well toned abs and muscles of appropriately clad men and women. As their muscles get flexed and the machines get worked on, the complex grows. The rate of growth of this complex is in no way connected to inflation or such other ‘growth’ trajectories. It outbeats all of them !

When the six packs on the wall descend to come alive in people next you, there almost a prayer that escapes the lips for the earth to open up !

Eating ‘naachini’ roti and drinking strange ( read karela and amla ) juices and sweating it out, is perhaps having a deeper impact on global http://healthsavy.com/product/lexapro/ warming and the macro economic picture, than on my body.

The trainer says the result will come. Focused questions on ‘when’ ( subtle indications that the ‘results’ better happen, in the ‘here and now’ ) have had the trainer suggest liposuction and such other subterraneous methods in the past to fellow ‘one-large-packer’s! That hint registered. Long back.

Many crunches, presses, lifts, bends & stretches later, the formidable single pack remains as formidable as ever. But the efforts continue in right earnest. Hope, they say, springs eternal. Some day, the concentrated capitalistic, single pack, acquired & amalgamated over years, will slowly dissipate. The mountains are broken stone by stone. No. Thats not a metaphor !

And then, comes this news. That the Chinese are taking to pole dancing. What was once done in dimly lit back strip joints is now seen as a ‘social’ activity.

If all of the current regime doesn’t work, pole dancing. Yes. That will do the trick for me. Thats the assurance i have given myself. And the prospect of heaving my lopsided body around a pole inst a sight to relish for my own eye.

But that is the whole idea. My grand plan. That is the thickly veiled threat ! That is the threat that looms large at me.

I haven’t abstained from sweets or sweated out better, ever since this emerged as an ‘alternative’ !

Finess Programs

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Organisations continue to thrive and progress. Because of people. Despite people ! It has been the collective might of many an effort which leads to cumulative results. Many a times, surprisingly positive!

There have been intense discussions which pervades all organizations. I am sure in yours as well. Am sure there are corner room / washroom / coffee machine / parking lot conversations which go like

You know, HE got a promotion for THAT
Dude, this company aint go so far man
Are you looking out as well
You know what, I heard your friend is in the firing line
Did you hear the news about the Mr. XYZ
God knows who will bring the money.
She is so slimy..


All of that and more. Well, its all perception they say. My only angst is with the very tongues waxing eloquence with quotes as above, in private, singing praises so that everything seems hunky dory to the world outside. In a sense, there are no permanent friends out there. No permanent enemies out there. Everything is transaction based.

But I have made some great friends out there. Great people who have reached out and we connected well. People who reached out without pushing their luck and knifing me in the back.

I guess the opportunity does exist. One must be discerning enough to spot it reach out to people. It isn’t easy, for one does get let down. But then, for every 10 that lets you down, there must be one, just like you : looking to forward to connect !

Go try find him or her. Good luck. The process is so ‘experience giving’ ! And, oh yes, the result so very fulfilling. By the way, there is plenty of exercise equipment in the gym. Just in case you wanted to be on a fitness program !
PS: Picture courtesy, CV Ramana