Feeling uneasy

Last December when I arrived in Kolkata after a hiatus of one year abroad, on looking at me right at the NSCB hawai-adda (one of my favorite words in any language), my mother couldn't hide her disappointment and announced that I grew visibly overweight and I could well match a Penguin in appearance. For those who do not know what a Penguin is, like me who never heard of that species till my mother compared me to that; it is a black-and-white biped bird with flippered wings and webbed feet, fat in the middle and tapered at the ends mostly found in the South Pole . Loved as Penguin indeed is very much as a cool and intelligent bird trotting about on the vast expanses of snow covered fields, it is not, at any rate, an honor for a homo sapiens to be compared to that biped in appearance.

So the best possible way for me to sink again into guiltless self-indulgence, is to brush aside the allegations as over-attention of an uber-protective mother who cannot resist the temptation of hyperbole as a part of her strong adherence to Bengali culture. But my daydreaming was not long-lived and only lasted till I took the opportunity of that vacation to go to Mumbai to visit P for a couple of weeks. A one-liner about P may not be out of scope here: P is my only classmate in school who somehow rode out all the tempests and the tornadoes and the cyclones of a relation to go on to win the title of my most trusted friend of today. OK. So I am now on an Air Deccan flight to Mumbai eagerly awaiting a tryst with P after almost four years of estrangement. When P came to receive me at the Chhatrapati Shivaji hawai-adda, it was an emotive moment quite natural for a reunion of two close friends separated for a long time, he hugged me passionately, took charge of my luggage and then the thunder struck on my head. P whispered to me, "You are looking like a sexy thunder thigh Tamil Heroine."

As P dropped off that comment very casually and wandered off with my trolley toward his car parked far away from the airport exit, I sank into a private contemplation, a deep contemplation. So, really I'm looking soooo.... Oh. Jesus.. I can't think any more. As P pressed the accelerator at full throttle and his recently bought 10- year-old -second-hand Maruti 800 sped past motley images of urban accoutrements on both sides of a Mumbai highway, along with also rushed my fears about my recently confirmed doomed future. Many deadly images flashed through my mind.

The more I pondered about that, the more did I feel utterly hopeless, tremendously insecure. As it seemed to me that I was descending through a bottomless despair, from which my rescue appeared impossible, giving me the feeling of a fast approaching damnation -- maybe a long overdue nemesis for my past guilts -- suddenly, very suddenly, surely by the grace of God, a piece of paper rolled down through the broken glovebox of the car's dashboard and fell plumb onto my feet. The paper sported a big picture of a person who, defying all popular wisdoms, attained the most glorious success that one can imagine in his profession, despite arguably having no merits for that. If he can, then why can't I? I took no time to make my mind up. Yes he is my inspiration. My idol. My beacon in my desperation, in my puerile failings. He is my God. The moment I saw his picture new hopes bloomed in my mind, my emotions were promptly rearmed. The very moment, I took oath in the name of the newly found messiah-- my only resolution for 2006 -- to go to a gym without responding to the calls of auto-generated excuses even if there was a tsunami or a Katrina or a devastating earthquake, till I developed at least 8 distinctly visible biscuits of tight, strong muscle in my abs.

Till yesterday I very austerely followed the course of action that I struck out while I was traveling with P in his car in Mumbai. But today I missed it. I missed it because the gym was closed much earlier than normal for reasons not clearly known. I sinned. Clearly I sinned. That is why I am feeling uneasy.

In case you are curious about that adorable person who showed me light at the time of my abysmal despair by setting an example of his own life, here is the man. Let me take his name once again with all the respect he deserves.