An Alternate....

Each New Year, we Indians wake up to a million new wellness resolutions. From promising to lose kilos to enrolling for yoga classes to even the simplest of morning walks tops the charts of our resolutions.

India is slowly but steadily waking up to the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Wellness is the new mantra and fitness the new fad. While it’s an extremely welcome trend in this otherwise food, cricket and Bollywood obsessed nation, a majority of us however, are victims of consumerist health activism which is largely driven by economic rather than healthy motives.

Restaurants are dishing out the so called ‘organic’ or ‘nutritious’ dishes on the menu at a steep premium along with the traditionally unhealthy fare. The Wellness Spas, gymnasiums and other holistic fitness centers are mushrooming all over the country promising to rejuvenate our bodies, and souls through a variety of scientific sounding rituals along with exotic sounding therapies. With a growing number of Indians willing to pay big bucks to feel good, the country's fitness and wellness industry is blossoming. Celebrities from Zaheer Khan (Cricket) to John Abraham (Actor) all hopping onto the bandwagon of being fitness entrepreneurs, the industry is poised to grow to an estimated Rs. 1 lakh crore by the end of 2015. 

(Related Article - Business Today)

Just to draw a parallel, Americans spend more than $20 Billion (2013) annually on diets, with 108 Million people trying various diets per year (2013). The average cost of a gym membership is $39 per month, but 67% of people with gym memberships never use them. Indian figures I am assuming would be much worse than these. (Source)

Today morning, my maid decided to call in sick. (I secretly know she must’ve partied hard last night) and hence out of necessity, the situation gave birth to an awesome workout for my wifey and me who decided to rise to the occasion, albeit with our handful of mops and dusters to clean the whole house. And now when the workout has ended post almost 3 hours of shared rigour, we feel not only much better but almost victorious. The other benefit is that we now have a sparkling house! Try it.... This workout works!!!

You can really quantify your workout doing household chores - Find out how many calories you burnt doing household work!

Special 26

At 26, life is a lot like our wardrobes, organised in parts but largely all over the place. It’s that time we realize that childhood has ditched us and long moved on. Adulthood is like an uninvited guest. It's here, but we hardly want to acknowledge its presence!

 26, is also slightly confusing. Almost like the sudden commercial break that pops up, while you're engrossed in the climax of an intense romantic drama on TV. You don't know what to do when it hits you. It makes you feel empowered and in control of things, people and situations. You feel, it's your time. You're poised for world domination. Dreams suddenly seem achievable. And then one day, you cry like a baby, when your girlfriend / boyfriend break up with you citing "Compatibility Issues"

It also makes you that much more vulnerable. Vulnerable because you know you've grown out of being the boy who wanted to party each weekend but you haven't yet fully grown into being a man who can enjoy a single malt and a hearty conversation for a Saturday night!

You're independent but still the second signatory to your bank account after your dad. Your mom trusts the maid over you to get the best bargain on the monthly grocery shopping despite you acing your dissertation on contract negotiation in your final semester.

26, it’s a bit like entering the 8th grade in school. It leaves you puzzled whether to be happy about the transition to trousers or be sad about the fact that you're still not eligible to be appointed the Head Boy. It is largely a confusion that arises out of expectations, partly those that emanate from others, largely the residue of complexities of the ones which are your own.

The phase, a paradox of emotions, gives you the high of gloating in your new-found confidence which gets credited with your salary every beginning of the month. Short-lived though, only to be deflated by the information that your college buddy who's Haka Noodles lunch you paid for in college, spends that much on his weeknight out with his office colleagues. His visiting card carries the logo of the company you've yearned to work for and his assistant informs you that he's travelling to Cannes / The Oscars to look for good content when you call his office, while his cell phone is out of coverage area.

A Facebook status update / a pic tweeted by your school friend whose greatest achievement for life you thought would be graduating college without an ATKT is  surrounded by ladies on the red carpet. You read on and figure that he's touted to be the next big thing in Bollywood and his Foursquare update a week later reads ... "ABC just checked in at Eiffel Tower, Paris" with his moronic smile bulging out of the picture. This phase has a special talent at making you feel big one moment and belittling your ego the next!

Adding to that, at 26, you also realize that the world as you know it, can be divided into 3 kinds of people - 'Engaged', 'To be married' and 'Newly Married' people. These 3 categories will encapsulate the entire spectrum of mankind to have ever walked on this planet. Your Facebook timeline starts resembling a wedding album and the Foursquare check in updates of your friends could be easily compiled into the list of best honeymoon destinations around the world.

All your crushes have found their crushes leaving you crushed. The neighbor who thought you were ‘Cute’ as a kid now refuses to recognize you when you ask for the spare key to your house when parents are away.

Yes, I know, 26 is a time, that can make you wish the Mayans were right. It drives you nuts. It personifies insanity. It's insane.

However, it is also special. It’s special because it allows you the space to discover your true friends, your hobbies and interests, at a point, discover your true self. It makes you expressive beyond your own imagination. It sensitizes you in its own unique way to human emotions, the way you never felt them before.

 It makes you realize the importance of family. It makes you realize what it takes to be truly ‘happy’. It pushes you against the walls. It enables you to nurture and cultivate responsibility, without thrusting it upon you accidentally. It makes you stronger without killing you.

While you dance to the song of heartbreak and love, yearning for the ‘Perfect one’ to be with, you don’t realise that it is this 26, which makes you a better person. A person your ‘Perfect One’ would love to be with!

Bollywood for life...

There are things that affect us.. and then there are those that mould or change our lives forever. Bollywood for most of us has just been a source of entertainment, for some even obsession, however for me, it has often been a great source of learning.

There is a great body of recognised / unrecognised work which has gone into making the hindi film industry what it is today and I'm sure there are those who realise that there is a great deal of quality which has also churned out of this dream weaving factory.

Today, I list 5 bollywood tracks which have shaped my outlook towards life. These songs embody the ethos, the spirit of life for me. These are gems which act as a beacon when I'm lost or just plainly down and out. These songs surely entertained us in the context of the films they were a part of, but for me, they did just that little bit more... they taught me how to live my life....

1) Kisi ki muskurahaton pe ho nisar - Anari
2) Ae zindagi gale laga le - Sadma
3) Aane wala pal - Golmaal (When I write Golmaal, I always mean the old Amol Palekar one!)
4) Zindagi ki yahi reet hai - Mr. India
5) Yeh safar... bahut hai kathin magar - 1942 A Love Story

The legacy of hate...

The Prelude:

What inspired me to pen this one down was a series of events. Firstly, a detailed TV report on the defeat of LTTE and the death of its leader Prabhakaran. The report also laid stress on the severe violation of human rights and an old tactic of LTTE of using Female Human Bombs. One of the kinds that killed perhaps the most charming PM India ever had, Rajiv Gandhi.

Followed by these reports I also happened to see, perhaps one of the most underrated Bollywood movies of all time, Dil Se which really aggravated the urge to vent my poetic frustration…That is exactly what I did, albeit in a storyline format which to some purists might be too long for it to be called a poem… Who cares!!

So here it goes…

Fallen lies our soldier brave,
Misguided by beliefs, she dug her own grave,
Now she lies in eternal sleep,
Leaving behind hundreds to weep

A false battle she fought all her life,
Someone else’s ideals became her strife,
High on the venom of vendetta and hate,
She herself was the author of her ugly fate

She’d seen her sister being raped at five,
The fanatics set on fire her mother alive,
She was held by her hair and dragged a mile,
The cops merely compiled her miseries into a file.

A childhood full of trauma had gone astray,
Under the tutelage of terror and guns to play,
The lessons of violence were taught so well,
How they would manifest no-one could tell.

She was chosen then, to be part of a demonic plan,
Despite being a girl, she was the best in her clan,
The spectacles of hatred, the world will watch with aplomb,
The holy sacrifice will be made by a human bomb.

The girl who could have been a mother or a wife,
Was now prepared to sacrifice her life,
Thinking ability of her mind, since childhood was chained,
The moment had arrived for which she was trained.

Twenty sixth day of January did arrive,
The Republic Parade was being telecast live,
Thousands had gathered to feel the pride,
Bejeweled with her pearls, ready was our bride.

The President had taken the last salute,
The army band was playing the flute,
It was just then, “BOOOM” went the sound,
With it, the sound, took hundreds to the ground.

The masters across the border had reasons to celebrate,
The plan they’d conceived, had worked just great.
Bloody corpses lay on the hospital bed,
Official figures stated four hundred dead.

Our little girl never realized I guess,
She was used like a pawn in the game of chess,
The result of her mindless act,
Could prove to be more heinous in fact

Another one of the orphaned child,
Could take the path of cruelty and go wild,
She never realized what she did create,
She left behind a legacy of hate…