Smaller Ants, Big Ants, Lizard and Snake

Its strange how fast the fan rotates and it never falls off. And I can see through the rotating blade, the ceiling has lost the shine of its white colour. There are hints of recently removed spider webs on the ceiling.

The CFL bulb in the room removes the difference between day and night, its always glowing, its always the same. To remove the confusion, I look at my mobile, its 12.40 am. Its raining outside and the sound of rain outside and rotating fan inside is mixing up. Its not disturbing, its soothing.

The walls are light yellow and the room is small. The mosquito net on the other bed is swaying.The blue curtains are also swaying.

There is a hole in the wall. some big black ants are concentrated around it. They are all static. There is another line of smaller black ants running across the wall from floor to ceiling and disappearing into the ventilator. They just keep on following each other, one after another in a queue. Its monotonous, its repetitive. But I keep watching them. Those tiny bodies moving so fast, those tinier slender legs floating over the wall. The line of ants seems to stretch to infinity. The individual ants cease to exist, a dark line instead takes place of the queue.

The dark line breaks up in between. The smaller ants are in a disarray. A big ant has broken this line. The smaller ants are attacking this big ant. So many smaller ants are biting this big ant. But this big ant calls for help. Soon, from the hole of the wall, a number of big ants start swarming out. And there is a mayhem. Big ants break hell over smaller ants, they bit them and cut them into pieces. The severed bodies of smaller ants are falling on the floor.

One lizard is keenly lurking around the falling ants on the floor. It is interested in this free meal. It throws out his long tongue and sucks in one of the severed body. This makes other ant bodies run away towards the door. Some ants have only the upper half, others the lower half and they are dragging themselves away towards the door. The lizard is angry. It growls and fans out its ears. It raises its body on all four legs and swings its tongue out in the air. It moves towards the door and suddenly stops in horror.

A snake head appears beneath the door. It moves its body inside the room from below the door space. All the severed ant bodies are struck to the snakes body as it makes its way into the room. The lizard tries to stop the movement of snake by raising its front legs one by one and making growling noises. The snake raises its head and in one strike the lizard is gone into its long unending slimy body.

The size of the snake starts to increase. It is thicker and longer. It sees me on the bed lying terrified. Its body raises as a spring coil. The big thick sticky shiny curvatures one above others raising it to the ceiling height. The severed bodies of ants sticking to its body are also larger now. The fan blows those ants around the snake like a garland. The snake raises its head once again. I am paralyzed in fear. The big mouth of the snake opens and it strikes me. 

I am shaking. Its wet, hot and dark inside the snake.

Its power cut. I am sweating.    

On why I am not fat

Life throws you many challenges. Most of them, we accept humbly and try to fend it off. Some, we make a mess of it and still hold on to fight it off. And a few of the challenges get under our skin. Literally.

The baggage of those extra kilos under our skin is not only 'figure distorting' but also 'life threatening' as we are told. The booming business of fat burning never fails to get this off your head.

You open TV sets and it will be showing you 'slim and muscular' bodies on 'naaptol'. Order this now on '7373...' and get 70% off. Be it slimming belt or exercise rope or fat burning capsule or body shaping clothes, you feel like all the energy crisis in the world is due to over accumulation of bio energy in human bodies. Newspapers and magazines are not far behind. 'Fat go oil', 'body toner pills' etc are the main revenue sources of print media advertisement, it seems. You take a walk in food section of big bazaar and there you see 'less oily oils' , 'less sugary sugar', what the hell! All biscuits have fiber in it, all breakfast items have more fiber in them, as if we were born to munch wheat bran.

The neighbourhood Shukla aunty is the new local icon. She wakes up at 4 am in the morning, drinks warm water with lemon before relieving herself and launching herself onto the colony roads in sports shoes and knotted dupatta across waist. After huffing and puffing for one hour, she then goes to yoga classes and eats no rice. She once had a 46 inch waist, which is now only 38, as we are told. All this while we poor losers sleep our way to ever expanding waistline.

In this mean world, where everyone is looking for the 'perfect selfie', being branded in the 'MCG' category for long has been stressful. No, its not Melbourne Cricket Ground, its 'motu', 'chotu', 'golu'.

You look at our cinemas.The heroes are lean, muscular, tough characters. And so are the villains. The chubby ones are sidelined to play the role of dumb brothers or stupid nerds in the college. Not only ugliness, even inefficiency is attached with chubbiness. The fat guys are non performing couch potatoes.

So, this extra fat leads to extra stress which in turn leads to more fat and the the vicious circle keeps rolling on. 

To break this circle, its important to demolish the very notion that "I am fat". For that, I have decided to come up with factors why I am not fat -

1. Most of the Indians are too thin. Half our kids are malnourished. I am just healthy, better than most Indians. You can not blame a guy for the theory of relativity. 
2. My genetic code leads to round body structure. Being round is not being fat, its just the bone structure.
3. My internal organs are prone to frost bite. Hence a thicker insulation layer. This is not being fat.
4. This is mere 'character illusion'. 'Branding', some may say. Few people are branded as cool, others as fat. The reality may vary.
5. I have a bad dressing sense. Clothes make me look fat. In good dresses, I will be as slim as any one else.
6. My stomach keeps food for the longer than average time for digestion. Hence it swells up more. My rest of the body is ok. You can not blame the stomach for trying to digest food in a better way.
7. People must not judge a book by its cover. Some faces have 'fat-friendly-package'. It inter-alia doesn't imply fatness.  
8. It is the fault finding society, that is at fault. when people can not find anything against someone, they use physical appearances as excuse.
9. Cameras are made for people with sharp physical and facial features. Light when reflected by round surfaces does not form a sharp image. Hence, people with round faces and figures get their pictures fatter than they truly are. Shame on cameras!
10. Normal mortal beings can not appreciate things beyond their time and locality. My body shape and size will be considered ideal in ages to come. I am just ahead of my times.

Hmmm, after making this comprehensive list, I feel confident. To all the people who are being tormented for body shape make your own such list and stick it on the wall of your home. And feel good, feel handsome. Don't let business of fat reducing affect you. Kick them hard. You have got one life only. Sleep, eat and sleep again, as God intended us to do. Everything else is "moh-maya".

P.S. I know there is difference between excuses and solid reasoning. This is the latter one.