What actually triggered off this outburst of emotions is a seemingly trivial comment by my boy friend. He is the best travel agent for a guilt trip. He can downright make you feel ashamed of yourself without even saying a word. He can pull you down from cloud no 9 to dungeons of despair. I will refer to him as Narcissus. I choose to call him that for a few reasons. For starters he is in love with himself. Secondly he is handsome enough to do so. Third it kinda rhymes with an anagram of his name.

Now for the details of tragedy that befell me. I was in one of my rare happy moods and even contemplating cleaning up my apartment. I decided to start with the fridge. Living on a shoe string budget, I didn’t have the heart to throw out the last brownie and a scoop of ice cream that I found in the fridge. So I popped the brownie in the microwave, dug deep  and excavated some pre historic residents of the black hole I call fridge. And Voila! what do we have there?  - A sizzling brownie with chocolate sauce and ice cream and some whipped cream to top it. <happy music>

 

I got a call from Narcissus. I enlightened him about my enterprising self who managed to throw together the most amazing, mouth watering dessert with the left overs in the fridge. I was reveling in the taste of my achievement and expecting  a pat on my back for it. Instead Narcissus gives his normal grunt in reply( may be I should have called him the pig. He grunts more than he talks). It was followed by a moment of silence. An then Narcissus drops it on me. “So ..” (Did I mention that Narcissus has this habit of beginning every sentence with so? That is when he is not grunting his replies).”.. when are you going to the gym?”.

If this was a movie I was directing, there would have been danger music playing in the background as my spoon stopped mid air. I would have taken a close up shot of my fingers losing grip on the spoon  and follow the spoon clattering on  to the floor, splattering brownie and ice cream on to the carpet. Then I would pan the room and zoom back on to my face standing with mouth agape. <sad music>

 

Did you just say I over reacted? Then most probably you are a guy. And more specifically a guy who nags his girl friend/ wife to lose weight or hit the gym. A guy (like every other guy) who thinks that it is his birth right to have a reed thin woman tending to his needs- carnal and otherwise. <

The cardinal sin in the book of dating and courtship for men is telling the lady that she needs to lose weight. Come on guys, we are obsessed enough with our weight without you having to remind us. And remember, We are much better than you at word play, In fact we invented word play  just like we invented fore play and you have no clue about either. So don’t break a sweat trying to disguise your intention with an indirect comment on our weight. For instance, I order a brownie bite at Barrista and Narcissus first gives me an unapproving look, which I chose to ignore. But I decided I would only have half the brownie bite. He gasps as I repeat the order to the waiter. I reduce my intended level of intake to quarter glass. And then he tells me that my kurta has shrunk after the last wash.  Sigh, I call the waiter and ask for a brissta lite instead of the brownie bite.

 

You guys may be better at reading maps but we have an innate ability of reading between the lines.  We are not blessed with the wonderful metabolism that you guys have. We (or maybe it is only me) believe that food of the likes of cucumber is to be thinly sliced , salted , peppered and thrown away. You are the ones who make us conscious about the way we look and then complain when we ask if we are looking fat. (btw the only correct answer for it is no). Next time you want to tell your girl friend to lose weight, please do consider how you would feel if we constantly cribbed about the size of your dick or rather the lack of it.

I am sure you ladies out there are wondering what became of my dessert. I threw away the remains of my dessert. <sad music. i would probably have a solo violin piece here played by some one who has never ever seen a violin. i am feeling that miserable> Then I started doing what pissed off girl friends generally do. I disconnected his call and started ignoring his messages. Narcissus still thinks I over reacted. I am devising a plan to shed those extra pounds which will never make it beyond the paper.