Stomachfull

(Written on 15th October 2005. Time 0800 hours)

Yesterday night I ate, no holds barred and no bars held. Hot rice, sambhar, potato curry and a very-tasty coconut condiment I never before ate in my life. The result was an inflated stomach and a deflated state of easiness.

I felt miserable. The thought of the very coconut condiment I devoured minutes before was repulsive. I sought nearly all ways of tummy reduction. Maybe the only solution I haven’t thought of was going to one of the ‘tummy-reducing-hair loss-preventing-weight-losing’ courses for a quick-fix ‘stomach reducer’. Incidentally, the print ads of these so-called ‘beauty clinics’ always amuse me. They show, a man or a woman, before and after the treatment. The ‘beforebeing’ is usually fat or bald and the ‘afterbeing’ slimmer (oh! not slim as ash or deepti bhatnagar) and hairy (I am tempted to use the word ‘hairier’, but lets spare the linguists). I often see a happy, content ‘beforebeing’ and an uncomfortable, ‘conscious-of-his-existence’ ‘afterbeing’. Makes me derive a thesis that people, if left to themselves, never prefer ways to look younger or thinner or beautiful, but it is only when their friends/relatives/peers/family torture them making fun of their visual handicaps, that they turn to these promise-sellers.

Coming back to my own stomach, passing time and the ensuing digestion brought me relief. Nature has a way of curing any excess. I felt the same elation as watching wheat disappear into the pounding machine at the flour mill, grains by grains from the bottom till there is wheat no more and flour aplenty.

The tummy tale is not without its philosophical significance for me. I learnt that an ‘overdose of things’ is not palatable. Metaphorically, it could be food, happiness, comfort, pleasure, wealth, fame, ego or misery, pain, greed. Everything in proper proportions, spells the effect of magic potions.

Think.

Practise the art of ‘self-restraint’. Gandhiji said the same thing. My friend Pyro also has his life motto summarized in a couple of words ‘Live Light’.

---- Shyam Kurni