This morning was good. I woke up with some hope of completing my so called daily exercise routine, which, for past few weeks is far from daily, and to my utter astonishment I did complete it. And while I was doing ab-crunches, I fondly remembered my old days of golden leanness but only for a fraction of second, as the dream came to an end the moment my eyes met with a massive heap of fat folding above my belly. Still I have hope that someday, some lucky day, I’ll be able to get rid of every iota of fat in my body. Now that’s the kind of optimist that I am. After the workout I started off with my daily chores that included filling every utensil that can hold water with the corporation drinking water and putting the garbage bag outside. And while doing the later I met with a flourishing colony of cockroaches. I struggled with them for nearly half an hour, destroying them all, yet knowing that the next morning they’ll be back with a bigger militia.
The bath was good. Luke warm water caressing the sweatened skin in a mildly cold morning gives one that sense of complacence, in which the poet Browning might have written “God’s in his heaven and all’s well with the world”. Then came getting ready for office, and there I was face to face with my own face, the fat has somehow found its way even to my cheek, and it looked amusing. But as I saw a little above the face, I suddenly became aware of the receding hair-line that’s been receding for quite a while now. I certainly couldn’t choose my biggest worry among falling hair, growing fat and cockroaches. But as I am a sane minded, middle class, service sector, not so old, easy going, happy go lucky Indian citizen, I left all the worries for some other day, and made my way to office in anticipation of a good and eventful 5th ODI between India and Australia. Little did I realize that the entire anticipation was going to end in an anticlimax with India giving its every player a chance to bat. I never believed in such an interpretation of the notion of equal opportunity. 148 in 39.4 overs, that’s what we could build up to defend against Australia. We are going to lose and quite badly at that. And to a sane minded, middle class, service sector, not so old, grown up playing gully cricket Indian citizen like myself, this is very frustrating, though expected. But i still have a (false) hope…….