Of thankful thoughts

I'm grateful to a lot of things in life but more than all of them, for now, I'm grateful to be loved by him.

I'm thankful for the beauty of the posters and letters, reminding me that old-fashioned romance lives on. That his presence made me stop wanting to get drunk. I'm thankful he helped me believe a little more in myself and try harder to become the person I want to be.

I'm thankful our memories turn themselves into sepia-tinted showreels, moving in slow-motion, where the sound of our laughter echoes throughout and the light naturally makes us look ecstatic. That between is a divide of distance, not of barriers we chose to construct.

I'm thankful I can say all of this to him and he'll listen. That he'll forgive me for being a jackass and a hypocrite. That I can, for better or for worse, be there for him. I'm thankful I let him see me cry and that he did the same.

I'm thankful he is the person he is.

Lesson for today: I'm thankful to be his.

Food is my religion

At some point in every fat girl's life, she is told that her existence faces an imminent threat from the afore mentioned fat. At this point, you are made to swear on all you hold sacred (including potato chips) that you will stop indulging your lovin' for unhealthy foodstuff (including potato chips). For a while, scared by the revelation that your extra kilograms may do worse than just ruin your dreams of shopping at UCB and Zara, you actually make the effort to stop eating crap (including potato chips). This, is a big fuckin' mistake. It will, lead to disaster.

I went cold turkey, quitting chocolates, chips, candy, various other junk food-esque items and chole bature in the same day. Now, for a girl who has probably been comfort eating since she was 9 years old, giving up the very foundation of content leads to a considerable amount of emotional and existential angst. This translates into many unfortunate incidents. It starts off by becoming hormonal. Not the usual PMS hormonal, but oh-my-fuck-this-is-adolesence-all-over-again hormonal. It's the maa-behen-nani-dadi of PMS. And to add some more fun to it, you don't even realize it's because you've suddenly corrected your skewed body systems.

Then, you start becoming moody, since movies aren't the same without chocolate and nothing is what is used to be without potato chips. Even Arrested Development fails to cheer me up. Frasier still does, but damnit, I want my potato chips.

After a few weeks of this hell, where you feel happy, then sad, then suicidal, then homicidal then everything and homicidal, the doctor who has ruined your life so far says, "You need to stay away from Pasta." By now, your emotions are no longer complacent viewers, content with their hoard of potato chips. You rebel. Potato chips are purchased on the sly, chocolate is gained from ill-conceived means and By God, you eat pasta till you WANT to stay away from it.

Amidst all of this, you see that your body has reacted well to the lack of mind-altering substances and has shed some weight. You start questioning your decision to take up potato chips again. This is where it all falls apart. This is when you become depressed, irritable, sleepy, unable to focus and the whole schebang. At some point, you will find yourself wandering aimlessly at a metro station while not knowing where you're supposed to go.

Contrary to what you may believe, this has nothing to do with anything but your brain telling you that it cannot function solely on human sympathy and what not. It needs potato chips and you can't negotiate on that fact. So after months of agonizing, I ended up at Indian Coffee House, had my Dosa, Lemon Squash and Chips. I read a book. Then I came back home and ate some more food. And today, I happily munched on potato chips with Dahi. And tonight I went full glutton, without any regret.

The end result is a very satisfied Lemon Girl who feels very emotionally balanced at the moment.

And then I figured the Four P's of my happiness: Pineapples, Pasta, Potato chips and Lemon Boi (whose name starts with P and shall hopefully keep me well stocked with the other three.)

#Lesson for today: Food is my religion, do not make me fuck around with or I will turn into a fanatic fundamentalist and Fruit Ninja your ass off.

How I survived four hours in traffic and learnt I was allergic to chilli sauce

I live in Delhi. Good ol' Nayi Dilli, the city where Mirza Ghalib found inspiration. He must be thanking his stars to not be alive today. Delhi got absolutely fucked by the monsoon today and as is tradition, the drainage system pretty much fell apart. And then, to top it all off, I got stuck in the traffic for four hours.

Yes, count that. F-O-U-R.

I'm not even trying to exaggerate here, I swear to the sweet lord. I left home at 10:23 AM and I reached my office at 2:27 PM. And I ain't talking about Indian Stretchable Time here. Somewhere at the far end of the seven flyovers I must cross to get to office (which is an hour on a normal traffic-y day), a pipe had burst because of the heavy rains. The MCD is anyway perpetually confused about how Delhi functions and the rain sends them into a nervous breakdown.

So yes, I spent four hours inside my car. To top it all off, the car flooded. Yes, it flooded. Water sneaked in from some goddarn where and filled up my darling car till my feet were soaked through and I had no idea where anything was. While I was devising a plan to get rid of it all, the car decides this would a good time to show me how it can skid across the road and almost ram itself into a pedestrian's face.

No, I'm just messing with you. I can barely drive a cycle straight and need a driver and the car was flooded only about 3 inches.

In spite of this obviously scarring experience, I was in a chirpy mood when I got to office. Mostly because nobody else had shown up and I lounged about till 5 while abusing the internet. At which point I figured I should eat something. I power-walked to the market, where I figured I'll get a slightly spicy roll, just for the heck of it. I usually am somewhat sensitive to spice, but since I'm currently dead on the inside, I couldn't care less. Bad idea.

I have a slight cut on my lip from where a grossly negligent parlour-woman slashed through with her thread. My lips usually burn for a bit if I get spice right on them. And today being the precious fucker it was, the chilli sauce hit the cut point blank. The next seven minutes were spent gazing wonderously at my face in the mirror as my lip swelled up to five times it's regular size. And made me look like I was wearing whore-red lipstick. All in all, I'm apparently allergic to chilli sauce.

#Lesson for today: Days like this, be glad you made it back home with your body parts all intact.