Now that Cricket is over, here comes Football…

So I hear the test series between India and Australia is over. I’m not sure what the score is but India came out of the series looking  golden. Apparently we handled the monkey issue with a lot of maturity and dignity. As they say, all’s well that end well. And that is that.

 So you would think I would have the TV to myself without contantly having to battle with my husband for full control of the TV remote. Nope, no such luck. In America, ’tis the fiootball season, or to be more specific American Football season. On Feb 3rd, we have the superbowl where New England Patriots will play against the New York Giants. Each advertisement slot will be sold at 1.4 million dollars. Imagine, 1.4 million dollars for a 60 second slot.

 Now do I care about football, not really. I just keep abreast of who is playing who just so I don’t look ignorant. The game overall is very rough game, I wince every time a player gets pounded. I keep imagining how much pain they will be in the next day. Definitely do not want to be in their shoes no matter how handsomely they get paid.

At work, football season turns into an active minefield. Why you ask. Every January people start talking about the Superbowl and invariable an industrious colleague will start a Superbowl pool. I always avoid all talk of the pool since according to meit is yet another lottery. There is no strategy, no intellighence but just sheer luck. You can be as dumb as a bedpost but you could still win the pool. This year too, the pool at work started a week or so ago. And I was solicited actively to contributre. I ofcourse did not care, but my husband is super  interested.

My colleagues finally tracked me down earlier this week since they had a few boxes open. I finally gave in and contributed my ten dollars. Totally goes against my grain to gamble but a person’s got to do what a person’s got to do. And so I marked down another 10$ to charitable contributions.

 On Feb 3rd, I will be attending a superbowl party at a friends place. Not because I enjoy the game but the food spread is always awesome and the conmpany as always is delightful.

Another year, another superbowl. Oh Well, a girl has to choose her battles. If you cannot change ‘em, then might as well join ‘em.

The Stock Market …. and my weight…. (???)

Yesterday, an old pal of mine from College (you know who you are) asked me why I had not written in ages. What can I say, lots of work and lots of to do’s hanging out there. I have great ideas but if you have a Damocles’ Sword handing on your head (metaphorically speaking), it is tough to put your ideas into words. They just always come out flat. I worked hard this weekend and my to do list has now whittled down to almost nothing. Before any new tasks get added and the proverbial sword hangs once again over my head, I thought I ‘d take the time out and write something – anything as long as it has nothing to do with work.

So what do I have to say today? Is there a new gripe I can latch on to or can I dust off an oft repeated theme about my kids who provide me ample material. No, none of that. Today I want to talk about the mess that is the stock market and draw some parallels between stock market and my adventures in weight fluctuations. What does the stock market have to do with my personal weight – not much to the layman but if you follow my convoluted argument, I think you can be convinced. I have done some analysis over the past decade, and I think I have gleaned some parallels.

As we are growing older(not at heart but in age), all of us old fogies are on some diet or the other. Be it to fight bad cholesterol levels, gout, or just plain overweight, we all have our motivations. Some of us have turned teetotalers, and some of us have started downing bowls of salad like we were all goats. Nothing against salad personally, I love salad very much.

Overheard at a recent get-together, “Man, you’ve lost so much weight. What have you been doing”. Overheard at yet another get-together, “Yaar, I like the South Beach Diet. It totally works for me”. At another get together, the host made sure that the guests were made aware that he had lost hajjaar weight. It definitely showed but he just had to rub it in. And then we come to my husband who lately has been attached to the weighing machine – he religiously weighs himself after a bath, before a bath, before going to bed etc. I think he’s secretly in love with eth weighing machine and I think I spied him sending flying kisses its way. As if this is not enough he has to beckon me no matter where I am and how busy I am and show me his latest weight loss. What a loser – pun absolutely intended. Come to think of it, is that not the title of the latest reality show – “The Biggest Loser”.

I was never blessed with “thinness” – if it can be called that. Or in other words, I never can remember a time when someone called me skinny. I was always just a tad bit overweight and I have strived hard to always remain overweight. It’s been tough staying overweight but with sheer perseverance, I have managed the feat. J Growing up, it didn’t help that all the women in my family (My Mom, my sister and my dog) were gorgeous (well, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder and to me they were and still are gorgeous) and very, very slender and thin. I may sound like a “poor, poor pitiful me” – but that is because I sometimes felt like it. Most of the time, I was too busy to care but there were a few days when I would get up feeling blue. Those were the days when my poor Mom and sister almost pulled their hair out trying to figure out a way to make me feel better. My Dad was no competition since Guys absolutely do not care about weight.

Like the stock market, I have had some major upticks in the radar. The first one was when I entered the country. My body which was used to the heat, sweat and grime of New Delhi, was in absolute shock when I landed in Toledo, Ohio. And it didn’t help to realize that I absolutely loved Tex Mex food, and Daroo. Within a couple of months, I ballooned a couple of sizes larger than what I was. I lost a couple of pounds here and there but the general direction was up. Kind of like the lateral movement of the stock market with a general upward trend.

The next serious uptick was when I became pregnant. Remember in 2000 when the Dow slid from 13000 all the way to 9000 and then at 9000, there was some traction. That’s how I was. I gained a little in the first trimester and then form the second trimester, there was no looking back. I just kept growing larger and larger. My obstetrician and I would often laugh at the amount of weight I had put on. From then on, I pretty much bade goodbye to all my former clothes. There really was no going back, baby or no baby. This period of weight gain was akin to the irrational exuberance that Alan Greenspan touted through out his tenure. I had pretty much lost all rational thought, I was on the road and made some really poor choices in food – all in the name of a healthy baby.

Fast forward six years, yet another baby and yet another uptick. This time there was no serious damage done since I had Gestational diabetes and hence had to control my weight. This was the cautious investment phase. My poor mother in law, who hd come a-visiting, had to tone down her cooking since I barely could eat anything. All she wanted was to feed her sunbaai and I was pathetic enough to count the number of peanuts that I was eating. I think I pretty much survived on Ham and Swiss Cheese sandwiches for the last trimester or so.

But after the second baby I really have no excuse, my weight still trended upward. After seeing a couple of friends lose some serious weight, my husband and I decided to try some good choices in our food. So from that day onwards, starch was Enemy number 1 and vegetables, meat and salads were my best friends. We haven’t adhered to any one diet but it is just a general hodge podge of diets. It’s mostly my husband’s half baked ideas and long(really long) lectures. Trust me, the man can pontificate for ages on good foods vs bad and exercise vs no exercise. If you think my columns are long, you should hear a sermon by Nallu on the advantages of eating protein every day. Try to stay awake if you can – I dare you.

Anyway, it’s been a couple of months and I have slowly reduced my weight by a couple of pounds or so. And every time I climbed onto the weighing scale and saw that I’d gained back all I had lost, I felt the same sinking feeling you feel when your yahoo portfolio gives back all the gains from the prior week. I hate the weighing scale as much as my husband loves it. Nallu on the other had has lost weight at a rather rapid rate. Any place I go, it doesn’t matter if I went butt naked, I probably would not even get noticed. “Nallu, what has happened to you? Man you’ve lost some serious weight. Kya hua, biwi bahut bhaga rahi hai kya?”. Why do we wives get all the “credit”? I truly have no contribution to Nallu losing weight, he got there all by himself.

So anyway, Thank God weight fluctuations are not exactly like the stock market. I would definitely not want cyclicality in weight gain. So you lose some today and gain some tomorrow. I just want to lose weight once and for all. And that would be that. Back in College, our Economics Professor always said, that in Economics, especially in macro economics, if you collectively think gloom and doom, the economy will be doomed. It’s all about perspective. If you think the stock will fall, the stock will fall. If you think the economy will have negative growth, the economy will have negative growth. It sounded fantastic then but I’ve seen this in action and it really does hold true. It’s all commonsense at the end of the day. The irrational exuberance of 2000’s has now been converted to over conservative investors. The double digit gains in the housing market are now flat if not negative.

There is one parallel that I always wish were true of weight fluctuations. I wish I could just will myself to weight loss. If I think I am thin, I will be thin. Oh on! That never works with me, if I even think thin, I will be that much more hungry that day. So I’m hoping to lose a little more weight. And thanks to Nallu’s overbearing Nature, big bully that he is, he has bullied me, nagged me, scolded me, snatched food away from me and in general has been a royal pain in the you know where. But thanks to him, I have stayed the course and have at least not gained any weight in the past two months. A couple of folks at work have started Jenny Craig and yet a few have joined the Gym. I told them I had lost a few pounds and all they said was, “Really! It does not look like it.”. Little do they know that I have smuggled my weighing scale into the office today and am going to somehow find an opportunity to plonk it on their collective heads. Really, indeed.

The funny thing in this whole battle against weight is that I’m not even sure what weight target to strive for. Most people think that they would be on top of the world if they could get back to their pre pregnancy weight or if they were down to the weight back in 1980. Well, I’ve always been overweight for as long as I can remember, so what weight do I aspire to. Huh! It’s like I’m at the battlefield, and I have an army. Right, now who do I need to fight?

I think I am thin. I think I’m thin. I think I’m thin. I think I am thin. I think I’m thin. I think I’m thin…..

When all else fails, hope and prayer prevail….

A cross sectional study of a romance novel…fictional heroes vs real life heroes…

Author’s note: Some of you may find this article boring – well, read on my friends. Who knows, I may have football scores or cricketing averages or even a non-veg joke. Who knows. As Forrest Gump said, “Life is like a box of chocolates….” 

He takes her hand in his and looks into her eyes with an intensity that could burn one’s soul. She can see the love burning in his gaze and cannot hold back the love that is in her heart. “I love you”, she says, “I love you so much. More than the air I am breathing, more than  my own self”. He smiles at her and says, “I know. I love you too.” And together they hug, secure in the knowledge that they will always have their love for each other to keep them warm during cold dreary nights and a love that will grow strong with each passing season. Together at last. 

Yes, romantic fiction is absolutely that corny. You may think that I copied this stuff out of a book. No – I didn’t have to. I’ve been reading romantic fiction since I was fifteen. I’ve been at it for so long that I can sneeze this stuff out in my sleep. So no, I did not have to refer to a novel to write the above lines. Most romantic fiction novels end in a similar vein. My husband often wonders how I can read romantic fiction. There is a wafer thin plot in most instances. Girl meets boy, they marry and live happily ever after. There truly is no mystery about the final outcome – nah, they always marry in the end. And so his question, how can one read these books when one already knows how the end will pan out. He has a valid point but then how does a film like ‘Titanic’ become a blockbuster. It is not the end but how we get to the end that matters. To quote from a more recent example, Johnny Gaddar, the film all my friends are raving about. I personally thought the film was ok but according to a few of my friends, my husband included this is the best film ever. But getting back to my point, right at the beginning of the film, we see how the film will end but we still watch the movie to see how the story gets there.

A very wise man once said, happiness is found not at the end of the road but along the road. Similarly, no matter how predictable the end is, its how the main protagonists get to that end that matters. The plots may be wafer thin or extremely meandering but the living breathing characters that the authors conjure up are worth the read. I’m always fascinated by the male protagonists – they have such awesome qualities. They always are TDH (Please tell me you know what that acronym stands for. If not, where have you been all this time, Macha? TDH stands for Tall, Dark and Handsome), have always managed to accumulate wealth against all odds, are brilliant at everything they do, and yet are dumb enough to make some stupendous errors in judgment – all to make the plot move forward.  

The ending may be the same in every novel, but there are some other aspects that do change. The settings are slightly different. So romantic fiction can be divided into three broad categories in terms of time period, Contemporary, Victorian and Historical. In the contemporary novels, the female protagonist usually has a poultry farm or a book shop or an inn in a God forsaken village or other such “no prayer in the world of making any money” venture. The female in these novels at least has a backbone and so one can identify more with them. We still have some doormats that adorn these books but I am pleased to note that they are far and few in between. For the most part the female leads are extremely career oriented. Unfortunately for them, the male protagonist just happens to be richer and more successful. Oh well, who can complain about a rich dude who also wears his heart on his sleeve. Not me! 

Historical romance is usually the pre Victorian setting – so way before the women’s suffragette movement. The women here may still have a backbone but they have to be as devious and manipulative as Machiavelli himself to get the story moving. These books are full of historical facts and historical figures. If you heard of Castle Roslyn when the Da Vinci Code came out, you are way behind then. Most of my knowledge of English and Scottish history has been gleaned from these historical romances. 

Victorian novels are my favorite but that is not to say that some of the most annoying novels also come from this category. All the Barbara Cartland novels could give you a major headache. And the heroines of her novels are so badly typecast that they almost grate on your nerves. The Barbara Cartland heroines are true damsels in distress and most of them are also unfortunate enough to have an annoying proclivity towards stuttering by the end of the novel. The final few pages of all BC(Short for Barbara Cartland) novels were all full of dots. “I…………………..…..love…………………………….you”, stutters the female protagonist to the male protagonist with utmost regularity in every BC book. I…..think….I’ve…..just……….about……had…….it…..with…..this……book……..!!!! is my final stuttering thought when I’m done with a BC novel.

 I recently found one of the BC novels actually made into a movie – it is titled “The Devious Duke”, I think. Reading a BC novel is painful enough without having to sit through a one hour feature based on the book.  I found it at the West Windsor Library while I was perusing the Video Cassette bin during their many annual sales. The story was non existent and heroine was grating to say the least and then we come to the hero. Guess who played the devious Duke – none other than Hugh Grant. Can you imagine! The same guy who so brilliantly played the male lead in Notting Hill. The same very guy. Here he was supposed to be tall and muscular and he definitely did not fit the bill. Oh well, I guess he got very desperate to have agreed to the role.  

I was very happy with Enid Blyton’s and Three Investigators till I was fourteen or fifteen. Then one day I had my first crush and that was when romantic fiction made sense. Of  course in India (at least at that time), we had the nonsensical Mills and Boon novels. A more pathetic story line I have yet to read. But they were very popular then. Even within M&B’s you had the Doctor Nurse romance category, the secretary-boss romance category etc etc. I do remember one M&B that I enjoyed. I remember the name even after all these years – “The Duke wore jeans”. But for the most part they really were a ridiculous excuse of a book. 

I’ve been blessed to have made a love match. And there are days when I often wonder how come my hero never does what the heroes in the books do? If I sneeze, he’d make sure to get away from all the germs instead of handing me a tissue and asking me if I were ok. If I were to get a little emotional and dissolve into tears (yes I suffer from that malady), the hero form the romance novel would hold me tight and wait till I finished crying and following that he would hunt down a tissue to wipe my tears away. My husband on the other hand avoids me like the plague when I turn into a watering tap. And then I realize, the romance novel hero is a figment of the “female” author’s imagination. He has all the qualities that a female would love for a man to have. They really don’t exist except in someone’s imagination. That’s why it is called fiction I guess. 

But, by the same token, the men in our lives ain’t so bad. They pick up the slack when necessary. They watch the kids when the girls go out and play. They still take care of the garbage. And they will allow themselves to be dragged to watch a movie they don’t want to – all for us women. They cook for us, sometimes clean up for us and control that urge to burp/fart if need be. They may have their faults and all, but they still very much are our heroes. 

Remington Steele (season one) once said, “What is the point of a large tree falling to the ground in an isolated forest with no one nearby to hear the noise. The loud noise is almost like it never happened.” I think that is what this marriage and love business is all about. Bearing witness to the other person’s life. Caring enough to bear witness.  

A very philosophical Pillu.

What one can learn from a monkey…

Seriously, what can one learn from a monkey? I would think a lot. I personally have learnt much these past couple of months. The beauty of it is that I don’t even need to be in the physical presence of one to actually learn from it. I have learnt that the word monkey is somehow the eye of an international cricket storm/issue. It’s either monkeys who play cricket or all cricketers are monkeys, or maybe it is the spectators who are the monkeys. Who knows, I always get that part mixed up, and very intentionally too. J 

I come from a cricket frenzied nation. We’re not just crazy about cricket but we almost work ourselves in to a frenzy over a mere game. Just for this last statement, I have a feeling I will face a cricket fatwa from some of the members on this reader list. Whatever! All in all it is very amusing watching grown men and women (mostly men) become blathering idiots over a game. In India, Cricket is not just a game; it is our national sport, our favorite pastime. It is the one sport that sells cars, candy and cool drinks. I have often been accused of being unpatriotic all because I have not been able to drum up the necessary levels of enthusiasm when India plays a match. I’m sorry but I really don’t care. I don’t care if Anil Kumble takes a record 608(I may be off here) wickets or if he makes a test century. Seriously guys, grow up. It’s a game and some folks are interested and then there are some who just aren’t interested. 

I played a lot of sports growing up. Badminton and table tennis were a staple, Basket Ball was the sport for which I was handpicked for the school team – not because I was good at it but because I had the height for it. Apart from these sports, I have always taken an active interest in field and track events while in School. I also tried my hand at Kabbadi but then called it quits when I lost three buttons off my school shirt in one game. Time to move on to something with less physical contact. My Mom always complained how dirty our school uniforms got – well you should have seen our Basketball court – the D’s were basically hollowed out. The dirt from the Basket Ball court usually landed up on our shirts. A few too many hop, skip and jumps I guess!. 

I never excelled at sports, I was your average person who also enjoyed sports. Seeing me now, you may not know it but in school, I was actually sought out for most sporting events. I have a whole bunch of certificates to prove it too. And so despite having been active in sports and having participated in a variety of sports, I have never had the patience for Cricket. It always was too long to sit through. 15 minutes into the match and it is still the 2^nd ball of the 2^nd over – Oh My God! Another 18 overs(in most school matches each team played 10 overs each) and 4 balls to go. At this rate, life will totally pass me by. Even the grass takes less time to grow. 

To say that I’ve never been interested in the game of cricket would be an untruth. Yes, I’ve taken an interest in cricket now and then.  My first crush was on the Captain of the KV No 2, Pathankot Cricket Team. What is KV No 2, Pathankot, you ask. Well that was the name of our school. In fact apart from a few schools with distinguished names –   Bishop Scot, Staines High, Lawrence School, Fort William or St Josephs, most of the schools I attended had non descript names like KV No 1 Army, Deolali Cantt or KV BSF, Jodhpur. No fancy cricket teams in PKot.  So with stars in my eyes I sat through the first five overs of the inter-KV cricket match. We were playing an equally non descript team called KV No 1 – Airforce, Pathankot team. And it took an entire day for the game to trudge on and I was fast asleep by the end of the match. I was shaken awake when the girls around me were getting up to go home. I then found out we were well and soundly trounced, oh well, Airforce scores another one against the army. Was I interested in the match, ummmm no. I couldn’t care enough. But the cricket captain dude sure cared and so yes, I cared too. Well, love they say is completely blind and I definitely proved the point. 

The next time I was interested in the sport was when Imran Khan was the captain of the Pakistan team. Now, there was a dude. I think most girls my age at that time had a massive crush on the Pakistan Captain. Till then I couldn’t fathom how curly hair could look good on a guy. What better way to sell Godrej soap than to ask Imran Khan to endorse the product. I think I used that darn Cinthol soap for at least a couple of years before switching to Lux.  

I barely know cricketers by name, but please do not ask me what or how they look like. A few I know since they adorn the Page 3 columns. A few like Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar – you have to know. I think everyone and their grandmas know them. I had to know a couple of sport facts since they always showed up ominously on all the General Knowledge tests and quizzes. What was the batting average of so and so, who was the man of the match of so and so match. Who knows and seriously who cared. I’d rather spend time learning if Benazir Bhutto was actually corrupt or not. Cricket averages indeed.  

More recently I am stuck between my husband and his obsession for cricket. He never misses a match if possible. He loves the game and can pore over statistics for days and days. His entire family is loony over the game. There are days when I get up in the morning to hear him talking to his business partner in Uk and they always first spend the first fifteen minutes discussing the current/last/up coming cricket match. And only then get down to talking shop. When some player hits a fundoo six, you can hear my husband reaching for the phone – why? To call another cricket fanatic and discuss the six. I have a friends circle full of cricket mad people, they can stay awake eth entire night for a match. That is called dedication. I’ve often been dragged to these all night games. I being me, always take a good romance novel to keep me company. 

And so coming back to the completely over hyped fiasco involving the word monkey or a gaali – whatever the case maybe. I finally got interested in Anil Kumble. Why you ask, well you have to hear my Husband speak about him in glowing terms. A living legend, the best thing to happen to Indian Cricket, the best captain India has ever had….the list goes on and on. I think CNN-IBN went so far as to call him Captain Courageous, OUCH! And so I just had to see this paragon of virtue and so I pored over the internet looking for him. He’s a decent looking dude – seems very down to earth. I have so far seen two interviews of him and I can say, he is very good at speaking his mind and doing it very diplomatically at that. He also has a very heavy South Indian accent and says embarrassing like my Dad does. And I think my Dad would like to remind me that he paid for the school that taught me English. J Point taken Dad. 

I think Mr Kumble’s interviews are fun to watch. And now try getting me to watch a cricket match with him in it – fat chance. No way Jose! I’d rather watch grass grow.