I went a bit "Hmmmm" when I read this piece in the NYT by Dick Cavett. He says..
Television comedy, in particular, has become an equal opportunity employer of the gigantic. It seems as if nearly every sitcom has a requisite fat, sassy black lady (or man) or a fat, avuncular white Uncle Jim large enough to absorb the scripted fat jokes. I have yet to see one of those Comedy Central shows with multiple standup comics that doesn’t include someone the size of the Hindenburg. Frequently the comic is black or Hispanic — the two groups, according to many studies, currently bearing the brunt of the obesity plague.
Back in Bombay of course, the media - be it TV serials, adverts, hoardings, etc. would have you believe something else. Part of which it might be true, for e.g. Adnan Sami, Shekhar Suman. Look at Bips. What did she do to herself in Beedi?
My world is a bit different and closer to what Mr. Cavett's talking about. People I know, friends of mine, all of them. Looking a bit..what's that politically correct phrase?.."pleasantly plump". Little signs of another chin coming out here, a neck disappearing there. Someone who was quite thin and slim, lean and mean (love-making machine? geddouttahere) now looks like he's been stacking up the pizzas and sizzling brownies with walnuts and cheese-filled enchiladas.
Yes, we're all working hard and playing hard. Which is why an entire industry has come up around fat-free, etc. They didn't even leave shrikhand and rasgullas. And of course 98.5% fat-free gelato. Et al.
In school, I was pretty much 10-over par. Then one fine day - and I recall with amazing clarity - I woke up and all my trousers were loose, I was feeling better. I think I'd pretty much gone on some major diet and had done cycling and stuff. I didn't even know it till I noticed that man...they weren't calling me "Jaadya" any more.
Then college happened, then gymming happened. And then work happened. Loads of work happened. So much work, so little time. Gym went out of the door. And weight came in. And man, have I put on. I don't want to go into numbers, but you get the picture.
In the article above, Mr. Cavett goes on to add
But it’s no longer true that Europe and Asia can point to America and smugly sing, “Fatty, Fatty.” We’ve exported our revolution with our fast-food chains. Japan now has obese children for the first time in its thousand-year history. Mad for anything American, young Japanese have made McDonald’s (charmingly: “ma-ca-do-naru-doz”) their second – if not first – home, partaking there more than once a day.
I don't know if thats true in India. All those MackDees seem full whenever I go by. Those Domino pizza guys whiz across in their scooters like there's no tomorrow. And they still line up at Kailash Parbat and Bade Miya like they used to. But when I see around me, man, these bacha log, especially in college..all of them look like so nice and fit. Maybe no rippling biceps and curvalicious corners, but you get the picture.
So, what next? Guilt trips galore. Major internal strategy sessions (?) on the need to shed. And shed soon. Avoid wife's stern stare. Head to weighing machine, trembling in trepidation if that kaanta's crossed a century.
Gaah.
Do you have any inspirational stories on how you gained and lost and then gained and lost again? Or, do you want to privately wallow in self-pity on the state of your weight? do you want to beat your breast or chest with how you can simply not find that 25th hour to work out? (btw, I read in Mid-day that TV stars work out at 2am or something...with that mandatory photo of the track-panted actress stretched on a bench press with a trainer wearing a stern look and a T-shirt which says "From lard to hard").
Do you? then drop in a comment. Would love to hear from you.
They say, it is better to have ate and lost then never to have ate at all. Huh? Says who? That's what weight can do to sense of humor, I guess.
Gaah.
