A very happy new your to all!
Hope this year brings joy, good health, and peace of mind to all of you.
A very happy new your to all!
Hope this year brings joy, good health, and peace of mind to all of you.
I am a fat person. Not because of my lifestyle or my laziness. What I mean is, I am active. I walk a lot, work around the house, cook 3 meals a day and have a full-time career. I am not sporty and cannot lift weights because of an injury. Nevertheless, I am fat. I am not extremely fat because I can still buy the biggest size in normal-size fashion and the smallest size in plus-size fashion. I’ve even been in situations wherein my friends have argued/debated whether I am actually fat (Sigh! Friends…). I’ve had my tailor tell me “Never buy readymade clothes. They won’t fit you.” Even though I think he just wants me to be as a customer forever, I think he has a point. They do not fit me. If I buy clothes to fit my hip, shoulders don’t fit; they are big and droopy. If I buy clothes that fit my shoulders, Hips are exact and I look like a pregnant woman.
I have around 12 to 15 clothes that I have no idea what to do with. Wear it? I don’t want to. Toss it? Maybe I’ll like it later. I buy more.
My grandmother tells me a lot of anecdotes. I love to listen. One of her stories is how she and her sisters would go in a horse-pulled wagon to buy clothes every Diwali. It was a big ritual, and she still remembers most of her clothes. “I got a yellow pavadai (skirt) and violet sattai (blouse) when I was 12 years for Diwali. It was such a good material. It came till my toes, and I used to swing around making it swing. I looked like a rajakumari (princess),” she’d say. Her eyes twinkles when she says it and I love hearing that story.
Fast fashion. This was not a norm before 15 years. We did not know the brands and would ask the shop keeper to suggest. We do now. I remember in 2012, the brand W came to be. My friend told me, “They have this logo in their leggings so that people can see what brand we are wearing.” “Why?” I asked. “We can flaunt it. We can flaunt the brand.” I was honestly confused. By “flaunting” the brand aren’t we doing an ad campaign for the brand for free?
So, fast fashion or clothing industry produces the most garbage. The sheer accumulation of clothes is shocking. My friend is a professor in NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Designing). She used to work for fast fashion brands. Her POV, “People must always stitch their clothing and seek out help for selecting the fabric.”
She’s right. Fast fashion is just enabling consumerism and creating an illusion that we have needs when these are just wants. Accumulating garbage will eventually lead to irreparable disruption of many eco-systems. Some mistakes can be undone, and some cannot be. I wish our children can have a world where they do not live in the pressure of “What am I going to wear?” but in the joy of “OMG! I get to wear the dress I bought for Diwali.”
In early 2000s there was a delicacy that I loved. It was sweet corn. It was corn but sweeter. I remember asking specifically for it when buying roasted corn (Butta! For Indians 😊).
There was roasted corn seller near the vegetable shop in my locality. Winters were a busy time for him. My mom and I were waiting for him to roast the corn we’d selected. We were 4th in the line of customers. He had two types of corn. Normal and sweet corn. The normal ones were very less in quantity. I had selected a normal one and it looked not as fresh as the sweet corn. “Why is there so less?” asked him. “No one wants it Beta,” he said, “Everyone wants sweet corn. No one wants the normal one.” “Oh…” I replied with a frown. He smiled and explained more. “People like sugar. Add a little bit of sugar in things and they gobble it up.”
I kept nibbling on the sentence. You know there are things that keep dropping in till you feel like you have investigated enough? This sentence was that to me. I started to check for ingredients in all packaged items; Started to mindfully eat things to identify the faint difference. It was sugar. The packaged items, like Kurkure, Lays and even masala groundnuts had sugar. The potato chips form Hot Chips tasted different form Lays. I verified with the shop owner in Hot Chips. They did not add sugar.
The pasta sauce I make at home is different than the ones that come in a glass bottle. The packaged ones have sugar.
I am not saying all packaged goods have sugar in it, but most do. The type of sugar you eat is important because sugar is bad only when it does not add any nutrient value and hampers digestion. Cane sugar is not bad in minimal quantities. Corn sugar is bad. Be mindful of the ingredients when you buy packaged items. Check for corn syrup. If the ingredients are not clearly printed, research a little. If you are still not clear, do not use the product.
I feel the pressure to enjoy life has increased multi-fold in the past few years. It was a steady pressure, but it kept accumulating, nevertheless. This is affecting the growing population more than it should.
My friend just went on a family weekend when all her family members are suffering from viral fever; “Weekend with wonderful people…” her Instagram says. I have never seen my landlord’s child smile, except in reels.
There is fakeness everywhere. It is not something new to humankind, but the number of kids faking feelings is increasing. Maybe it is time we look into it. Maybe it is OK to just chill.
Let us do nothing, and post that we are doing nothing in Instagram, Twitter or X and any other new handle I am not aware of.
A lovely weekend is only lovely when you enjoy it; not fake it. An exciting event is not always a get-together or a party, it can even be as simple as cleaning your cupboard or writing your blog. I hope more adults understand this and let kids be kids. We should understand their milestones and celebrate them instead of posting about them. For example, my neighbour’s kid was ecstatic about ground being wet after rain. Kids must know that validation must come from people who care about them, not strangers.
I was talking to a friend today for a long time. She’d recently been discharged from the hospital. Told her I started blogging again. She was very supportive. She’s been a friend of mine for 8 years now. She was 64 and I was 35 when we first met. She lives with her daughter in the apartment complex I live in. We connected over our common irk towards the current generation.
The first time I met her was during my morning walk. She was walking her dog, Naruto, and I was, well, just walking myself. She was an energetic, loud, extrovert. It was instant attraction since I am an introvert. She told me about her dog, her late husband, her late mom-in-law, her wonderful daughter and her newest grandchild. We walked in matching pace (much to the dismay of her dog), drank coconut water near the park, and went home. Me, to a day of office work and her to her retired life.
She has many friends. She used to host kitty parties, loves gossip meets and always had time for her friends. She loves to cook. Pre COVID, every Friday, she brought me some sweet she’d cooked, badhusha, sheera, halwa, phirni. She turned 72 this month. She had a small party with her friends, and her family had arranged a small dinner. She smiled sadly as she said this.
She’d developed a heart condition after COVID. Despite this, she is always a beacon of positivity. She told me to watch Devara in Netflix. She liked the movie. She told me that the apartment’s cat has found a new boyfriend (very observant!). She told me something else that keeps me thinking. “Make friends while you can. Make friends when you’re sure they will not disappear any time soon.” I asked her what she meant. She told me that she’d lost 3 of her friends to COVID and her close friend passed away last month. I knew I won’t be able to utter the right words to comfort her. I just sat with her, placed a hand over her shoulders.
She immediately changed subjects and asked about my blog to cheer me up. I knew what she was doing and just went along with it. I could not imagine this shining light of a woman being lonely. I could not help but think about my own mom. She too is a beacon of positivity.
I just felt like sharing this. Let me know your thoughts. What do you think we can do to alleviate the loneliness the aging population goes through?
Spicy Rasam 