Everyone I know has made, at least once in their lives, the
resolution ‘I will study regularly/hard/sincerely’. Multiple times, more
likely. Could be on one’s birthday or at New Year’s or when one makes a promise
to God (‘please let me pass this time and next time I’ll study hard, I promise
you’).
When the medical professionals proclaimed ‘fat is bad’,
young teenage girls, plump young mothers and men with abdominal flab included
in their resolutions ‘I must eat less, exercise more’ and ‘…flatten those abs’.
My weight-loss battle continues, with the adipose ever-winning. Resolutions
like ‘I’ll eat less, only salad’ have failed. Repeatedly. The only way I could
comfort myself for the misery generated by such disappointment was by eating a
crisp, fried snack or syrupy sweet.
“That,” Shri Husband once told me. “Will load you with heaps
of useless calories.”
I retorted: “Wafers and bebinca slices are difficult to
digest. The more I eat the heavy stuff, the more energy I need to digest it.
For every 50 such calories that I eat, I need 70 calories to digest it. So the
more heavy food I eat, the thinner I will get.” When confronted with logic,
Shri Husband falls silent. Ha.
Housework challenged persons like me have a million times
broken resolutions to properly dust corners, crevices, under and behind tables,
chairs and cupboards. To keep a resolution, one has to choose it carefully,
nurture it day and night. No point getting influenced by impulsive random
thoughts like ‘I will keep my surroundings spic and span from tomorrow until
eternity’. If all of us thought like that and actually worked towards it
sincerely, our country might get garbage free. Which means the Swatch Bharat
campaign might be successful. Means we would participate and contribute to a
government plan without protests and cribs. (Shudder), won’t that destroy our
national character? What next, display better driving manners? Obey the law? If
all of us made and kept resolutions like those, we’ll turn into America/
Germany/ Japan, yaar. It would definitely destroy our Indianness.
But I know people who keep resolutions. Villagers in my part
of Goa decide collectively that (unless they drive taxis) they won’t venture
out on NY’s eve. The annual Chogm-Road Traffic Jam helps.
For the year 2016, I’ve decided to make easy-to-keep
resolutions. I will be on the internet not less than six hours a day. Might have
to change my sleeping pattern to accommodate that. Then, I’ve decided to meet
people mainly on Facebook: simpler than burning petrol and adding to above Jam.
Only two.
“Your,” Shri Husband recalled an anonymous quote and
applying it to me said, “New Year’s resolutions are something that go in one
year and out the other.” Very funny.
But
that’s not true. One year I’d committed to never doing vigorous exercise. I’ve
stuck to the commitment. Another time, I decided to be sensible and buy myself
new footwear before it wore out/broke. No more crises-oriented shopping, I’d
declared. Stuck to that, too. Yet another was to watch Arnav Goswami’s rants on
television daily. One dose of that cacophony teaches patience, tolerance, stuff
that the meditation-gurus charge to teach spiritual weaklings. Sometimes I feel
the urban wildlife on the television channels is more jungli than my forested
village surroundings in tropical Goa.
Never mind my resolutions. People I know have made some
weird resolutions. Some friends have promised themselves that they’ll finish
reading the books they’ve bought and shelved. Won’t happen; by the time they
finish dusting what’s accumulated on them (the books, not the friends), they’ll
be tired and in bed. It’s good that people still buy books, though, feeds
authors and looks nice in show-cases.
One
guy has sworn to buy only big fish, at whatever price. (There’s a history to
this. Since the hoteliers buy the larger versions of the tasty fish, eg:
visvonn, white pomfrets, chonnak, our local fish-vendor gets tiny, bony vellyo,
bangdulay, mannka, leppo, etc. This irritates my friend (and many others), who
feels that he’s not getting what’s rightfully his to eat. “Why,” he asks,
“should traditional non-fish-eaters come holidaying here to chomp something
that we so-o love.” My trying to reason with him that fish isn’t chomped
doesn’t help.)
Another
has vowed to only receive calls on her mobile phone. Considering the bills
she’s run up, it’s a practical decision. Will help settle her vocal cords, too.
She’s the same one who had once resolved to get herself a groom within 12
months. She’s still single. Happily so.
Up in Delhi, I hope Kejriwal has resolved to continue to
create controversies, they’re good entertainment; and NaMo might decide to go easy
on the travelling and wield the whip within the country instead. May our
neighbouring states decide to share water/ electricity/ manual labour/
vegetables with us. Simultaneously, may we Goans resolve to harvest rain-water
and start wielding our brooms/ koytay ourselves lest the neighbours not oblige.
Here,
in my house, Bai Goanna has borrowed Joey Adams’ quote to wish everybody. She’s
going around telling friends/ relatives/ acquaintances: “may all your troubles
last as long as your New Year’s resolutions”. She can’t say that to me because
I’ve chosen my resolutions carefully; as mentioned above, mine for 2016 are
hard to break and will last a long, long time.
Just
to let you know, this is my hundredth piece of ‘Bhiknna Bhajoon Kha’.
Feedback:
sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in
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