#CrewLife and Fitness

    If you thought your 9to5 desk job lifestyle was extremely unhealthy, try #CrewLife for just a little while.
     When I joined the Aviation industry, by fluke, way back in 2004, I was a slim person of BMI 17. I ate whatever pleased me, hated going to the gym, never played any sports and barely knew anything about health or fitness. Initial years of flying didn't affect my  weight much due to many reasons. I did not enjoy the crew meals on board and also had a tough time managing my sleep patterns. Straight out of college, #CrewLife gave me multiple shocks including to my body. After such long hours on my feet, running heater skelter like a minion well, because I was one and most seniors treated us like their personal slaves. Once on layovers I ignored my food and resorted to over sleeping to deal with my exhaustion. 14-15 hours of hibernation was usual. On a particular flight into Paris from Newark, I was in bed for 22 hours(!) without any food. Following day, I fainted at Charles De Gaulle and had to travel supernumery Paris -  Bombay. Things were no better at base as I was new to the city, lonely, vulnerable, lazy and unhappy. I hated cooking. And the idea of cooking for one seemed like demise of all good things to me. I skipped meals or hogged on outside rubbish food. About four or five years down the line, I was up by six kgs. and was ideal weight of BMI 20+. So I still had nothing to worry about as most people told me that I looked better with the weight gain.
    Fast-forward a few years down #CrewLife, say in 2009-2010, where very gradually I took to drinking which increased my appetite greatly. Now I did not skip meals and treated food like air. Constantly eating large portions coupled with even larger count of alcohol. Crew meals on board suddenly seemed to be almost gourmet. I flew, I ate, I slept and I drank and was super complacent. Eventually, I learned to manage work better and not run around on board like a monkey, doing other people's job. To our horror, time off after flights and layovers shrunk from three clear days to zero clear days or a clear day or maximum two which left little time for any life except unpacking and packing, and to sleep before and after the flight. Health and fitness weren't exactly on my mind. I still hated gymming. My BMI had shot up to 22+ which was technically ideal weight. I constantly thought and discussed my weight but did little or nothing to change it. Clearly, I didn't think it was important.
    However, worse was yet to come. Another couple of years down the line, 2012ish, I was pretty much settled in #CrewLife and also in Mumbai. Love had finally come to me and I spent most of the days eating and drinking through the world with BF and friends. When I saw one of my pics from a trip to Hudson Valley Vineyard, I was beyond shocked at how fat I looked. BMI at the time was 23+. Again, technically I was still not over weight but I was petrified by my size. I started under dressing like a fat Mamma, avoiding people for the fear of being judged. I lived like that for quite a while and then one fine January day of 2013, in Hong Kong, I decided that I was going to become slim and trim for my upcoming30th birthday in June. I started working out and eating better. I tried to take up running in vain as the best I could do was jog that too at other people's fast pace of walking! However, in a couple of months, I had lost 3-4 kgs. But meanwhile, my mental health suffered at the time and I gave up on it all. My priorities had changed drastically and involuntarily. Things got back to normal by the end of the year and I was drinking and eating like before. I toiled about my weight and appearance yet continued binging, vegetating in days off on the living room couch or hotel bed. By now, I had gone from thinnest person on board all the time to one of the fattest at most times. Uniform was now extremely tight and everybody commented on my fat. Yet! Yet, I drank more and never thought twice before gorging on red velvets. Although, I secretly remained completely psyched about my weight.
    Come January, 2015 and I was on ground for a little over a month during which time all I did was drink, eat, sleep, read. In February, when I weighed myself in Cochin hotel, I was aghast at my weight. I was now BMI 24+. Another kilo and I would be over weight. I was so distraught, I started doing treadmill the very next day. Gradually, I added 15 minutes of yoga stretch before the run and 20-25 minutes of post run exercises which also included 50-100 squats. I started reading everything and anything related to diet and exercise. Since doing only a treadmill used to bore me, I added spinning and stair climbing in between. My diet diary on MyFitnessPal was diligently maintained. I allowed myself to have one dessert a month, with a rare dinner, no crew meals, no fried food, no white carbs, almost no oil or butter and no alcohol. When on flights, I ran or gymmed and in Bombay, I started cycling regularly in the mornings. In merely, six weeks I had lost four kgs, BMI of 23. Post two months, I had lost about 6 kgs but I was unable to exercise on a regular basis and also was cheating on my diet twice a week. I regretted not working out but I thought it was okay to cheat a bit, my reward for being a good girl for so long. It's now a little over three months since I started my charade in February and I am 9+ kgs lighter, bringing down my BMI under 22. I work out irregularly and cheat now and again. But at least, things are not out of control. I need to lose 5 more kgs before I hit my target weight. And I know, it will happen.
    It wasn't easy but it was also fun. What was difficult was to detach myself from people around me were doing. Other crew members devouring crew meals or the hotel buffet, BF guzzling beer pitchers, friends gobbling down red velvets. But I manged. In fact, the more weight I lose I feel there is so much more to be lost. It's not wrong to say no to yourself once in a while. Now that I feel lighter, better, happier and energetic, I think it was a good decision.

To celebrate, let's buy me a beer. 

Main Bhi Critic

It's all shaking a bit much and the seat belt sign is on. We are somewhere over Tehran and while these pax have taken my twitter advice and fallen asleep after breakfast, I cannot help but wonder about watching my first Marathi movie last evening. "Devool", not sure if that's how you say it, on Star Pravaah. The @punkuzz and I have been exclaiming for ages now, while surfing the channels as to only if they would show the movies with subtitles. Whereas, the @punkuzz claims to be a movie buff, (language no bar), it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I myself enjoy quality cinema. Whereas, language is a bar for me and foreign language films are welcome only if accompanied by english subtitles. I have frequently inquired with my south Indian friends, colleagues if I can get their regional language movie DVDs with subtitles but no luck so far. However, of all the places possible, they said I am likely to get them in, wait for it..... Dubai(!), which is currently an offline station for me (stupid #crewlife).

I loved Devool. It was fresh, rustic, extremely down to earth, slightly raw, witty and almost embarrassing. The subject matter revolves around commercialization of God and worshipping. Strangely it reached out to me. There isn't such a temple premises where I have been and haven't had a fight, and this includes Shirdi. The simplicity and the lack of unnecessary complexity of rural life refreshed my childhood memory of when I got to spend carefree days at different villages and even give pretend-help to the extended family in farming. What a difference in the quality and principles of life.

I am sure it wasn't one of 'the' best Marathi movies and the number of such good movies isn't small at all. Yet when the @punkuzz says, 'why can't they make Gujarati movies like this?', I cannot help but wonder, 'Yes, why don't they?'. It's inevitable for me to compare the new things with the ones that are already known to me.

What is it that makes Marathi cinema accountable? Mood, aesthetics, awareness, receptivity of the audience? If so, what leaves Gujaratis far behind? Why must they churn out mindless, archeologically themed flicks that do nothing but humiliate the audience's rather common sense. However, one of the factors, could be the cosmopolitan culture of Marathi speaking Mumbaikars (and likes) towards whom I am guessing this cinema is aimed at. So until the Gujjus manage to keep up, I guess I am going to have to make-do with the other states.

Revival

No, this isn't another Twitter, Blogging, Social Media dissecting, Data Projecting post. May be something like that. Or not at all, you can not tell how it goes in my head. I could never understood commerce, business thingies happening. (What a waste of my Gujju genes, I say.) The only part of a corporate, I could get right is the part where you wear perfectly tailored suits, painful high heels going snap snap, with important, crisp business folders in my hand. I always imagined myself in glasses! (sigh) But that's that. I could not understand trading of a single rupee or present data analysis. Physics I got, Maths problem I could solve but I still find it difficult to go and file my IT returns, which reminds me that I haven't done it for last two years now. Aaaaargh! (shifts uncomfortably) But then again, in a group of seven close friends in school, I am the only one who did not go onto become a doctor. Perhaps, I was the only one who did not think that choosing to study literature after complex Maths, Biology and Physics, was a bizarre move.

These occassional compliments on Twitter that I have been ignoring for a while now, made me randomly log onto my blog spot after many a months. More than 900 hits (yay!!!), on a blog that I stopped updating a long time ago, it's a lot. Especially for someone whose writings find it difficult to make it online from That private folder on my laptop. Which, by the way, has crashed a couple of months back, taking it all with her. Her, you ask? Yupe, Mrs. Dalloway is no more and I am still mourning. If people are reading 140 characters of my senseless rants these many times a day, may be they would want to read a little bit more into me. But in any case, when does one ever write for others? One writes because it comes from within. One writes because it makes them feel complete and vented. Writing is nothing but cathartic in nature. So may be I should give a mouth to mouth, or a heart to keyboard type CPR to this blog.

You ever get that strange, sinking feeling on certain early early mornings, because you haven't done something for a really long time, even though you have been meaning to do it. That. Ya, then, just get out of bed at that odd hour and start working on it, however scared you are. And even though it's just something as silly as updating your blog with incoherent, random thoughts.

Cooking in the danger zone

I generally do not break my good 12 hour lull after a flight but today, I had made an exception for it was a tiring flight and it was becoming really difficult for me to stay up even though Big Brother was on channel 4. I had to be up at an ungodly 3 a.m. to operate a flight to London from scorching 45 degrees Celsius Delhi. I forced myself outta bed after four hours to save whatever was left of a three year old air-crew member’s erratic body clock.

Oh! Do I see something about India in that documentary on channel 2? This is where I stumbled upon ‘cooking in the danger zone’ with Stefan Gates. He was going to feature India and china. Our typical British host went to explore the dalit issue to our very own Bihar. The untouchables were never let into the higher castes’ houses, of course. Nor were they to use the same well of the village for water. They even have to have their food in different utensils. Blah, blah…. Blah, blah! Hah! I know all that. I Am From India. I even have an uncle, my father’s childhood friend, an untouchable, who at tea at our home has on more than one occasion asked for an untouchable’s different cup, laughing his heart out, recounting the stories of their childhood and the supreme proof of untouchable treatment he got in my grandparents’ household in the village. (He has now converted to Islam). And I thought this show was about the food and cooking….

Ten minutes into it, and I could feel myself dealing with uncontrollable tears. A typical dalit family Stefan was visiting worked in the rice fields for they were never allowed to own land. Children in the family never went to school because they had to work in the rice fields for the landlord paid them ‘nothing’ as wages but rice to eat. Rice with the rice soup (the water in which the rice was cooked), since they could not afford to have dal let alone vegetables, was the family’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. The land owners starved them and kept them uneducated to suppress them thus. There was a category in dalit, lower of the lower caste, which was not even allowed to work in the rice fields but only to catch mice in the fields which may be harming the crops. And the land owner would ‘allow’ them to keep the mice they have caught as a payment to the work they have done. That’s all they would have so that’s all they would eat! Roasted mice is their food! (Job search is on at a very high speed in my mind. Could I be so heartless as to just snuggle under a cozy blanket in a London hotel and enjoy the documentaries made by Foreigners?!!! ) Phew!!!

Stefan decides to go to Bombay as many of these dalits, like two thousand crore more people, migrate here in search of a better life. Well, he wouldn’t fly to Bombay, of course, he would like to take the train journey across India, (so snootily British!). While he made faces at the fact that he was going to spend 27 hours in a second class A.C. compartment, which he found to be, hmmm… let me just say, unusual, I am sure cutting across to second class non A.C. and third after that, he felt much better. He meets a dalit boy with polio who cleans train compartments for a living, and whose father has been killed in a dispute over a piece of land which was given to him by government to make a living! After 31 hours instead of 27, 8 pakoras, 3 bhajis and a chili, Stefan reaches Bombay, does some fine dining at a restaurant where an average meal costs more than an average Indian’s monthly salary, before heading to the biggest slum in India,
Dharavi. There is only one toilet for 800 people here. And a shoe-seller who lived and did business in a space slightly bigger than my current bathroom, would give away a free pair of children’s shoes to Stefan for his daughter.

It took Stefan three months to get approval to make a movie on food in china! I was hardly interested in watching a fried scorpion kebab eating host who later actually went fine dining of different penises. I know I am expected/required to put an end to this right here and quite obviously but I just want to leave two loose facts here before I do the same. One, dog’s penis has a bone. Two, there is no electricity in some parts of china, this very day.

Almost Confessions!

You know, I am writing this just because I read, not really read but brushed through, someone else's blog. Someone I don't like so much, someone whose indirect existence in life bothers me at times! One would think why would you read someone whom you don't like, but I do that more than often, I read their status messages, go through their pictures, blogs, notes, anything I can and I feel like.... Yes, I do that, and I do that in order to feel better, to look for things that would tell me that after all they are not such bad people. I do that, to sort it with myself that they have done nothing to hurt me, to not to let them bother me, to argue with myself that I am wrong in disliking them, to teach myself that this hatred is misplaced. But more often than once, I end up with the same emotions I started with, on some other times I end up seeing my morale sink lower. On a rare occassion like this one, I let it out in the open, for everyone to know and judge.
Life is nowhere near perfection and I take complete responsibility (guilt) for it.
I can't trust. May be it's too late for it or too early!
I can't decide. Why can't we just let life be as it is?
I can't soothe. I am scared of even trying, it would hurt me if I my words can't make you feel good.
I can't be nice. No, I am no great soul, if you act like a monkey, I would just be human enough to you.
I can't work hard. I could not have possibly been born to work!
I can't take shit. Oh! I am only kidding myself here, I take shit and I take shit all the time, only with utmost pain and humiliation in my soul.
I can't excel. I always wanted to be a writer or a model, unfortunately I am convinced I don't have it in me.
I can't step out. Life is trapped inside the box.
I can't speak up. I can't be tactful, and people don't seem to like to hear the truth as it is.
I can't take things lightly. Life matters to me so much.
I can't be a gypsy. I want a home to call our own.
I can't be too caring. I love myself as well.
I can't not be bothered. You matter to me so much!
I can't be selfish without guilt. I love you too.
I can't stop complaining. Things just should be the way I want.
I can't run away. I have nowhere to go to.
I can't fly. No, wait a minute. I can fly!
I am tired of living life as it should be, the monotone is magnanimous yet I can't help but be so hard on myself. We are only living a life passed on to us by generations before. We have been told to eat right, speak well, be nice, earn a living and be comfortable. What was the last time we did something on our own?

MA.....

I never call you that actually, isn't it, Mom? But I refer you as that many times over when I am thinking about you, in a cold cold land, far away from where you are.... I miss you Ma, I miss you loads, in tons, in kilos, in light years, infinite times over, but I rarely almost never tell you about it. But I miss you Ma. And when I miss you my heart just fills with tears that make my eyes wet. I scale the world and people think of me as brave. But Ma you know me, only you know what a scared little girl I am, who sheds tears at every little thing. Ma, you know me as I am, a lonely, insecure child who is starved of constant love and attention and care. Everytime I am hurt Ma, everytime people are mean to me, everytime I get crappy food on flights, everytime I make a mistake, everytime I fight with the boyfriend, I want to hug you and weep my sorrows in your warm embrace. Because I know even if you don't understand my problems, or me, you would be there for me and support me. But look what I have made of me Ma, I don't even call you and tell you, how at times life does not treat me very well. But you know, I miss you. And when I miss you at times, I talk to myself the way you do, I make faces and gestures just like you would, do things you would do, eat what you like, say things you would when you want to eat pani-puri, cook in your style, take a mouthful of it and cry. I never watched stupid serials on Colors Ma, but now I watch them for you. The only reason I cook and clean at home Ma, is because I know that would make you happy. I know I have never told you all this, and I don't think I would tell you also, because then we will both be very awkward. Strange, isn't it! But somehow we have never been so outspoken about our love, love that we both actually know that needs no telling. 'You like mom more or dad?', I was asked this many a times as a child and I could never answer. But someone was to ask me today Ma, I would not hesitate, I know it's you! It's you I love in this world the most, it's you who has done the most for me. And I am hoping that you have forgiven the mean teenager that I once was. You let go of your entire self, to bring me into this world, to raise me up! Your selflessness scares me Ma, I don't think, I can ever be like you. It scares me because I don't think I am the same for you Ma. But I know, you don't care for that as much. I know you just want me to make a good life for myself, and that's what I am trying to do, earnestly! I owe you my life Ma, thank you for everything.
I LOVE YOU!

Granny's Tales!

It was my granny's first time to Mumbai. She was accompanying her two elder brothers who were appearing to the UK embassy for resident visa permit. People looked at me suspiciously as I made my way through to two flight of stairs to meet them at Joshi Guest House on grant road. They had finished with the interview in the afternoon and were leaving in a few hours to go back home. The cubicle room of the guest house which, my granny kept calling hostel, had three single beds to each side and the fourth wall had a small television set planted inside a metal box. Besides this the only furniture in the room was clothes' hooks and a plastic bin. The sheets were fairly dirty n pillow covers half out. 500 bucks a night, not a bad deal eh?! The men, two of my granduncles and yet another middle aged man, consistently smoked bidis and spat pan in the bin. I was appalled, pukish, inconvenienced and amused all at the same time. Apart from five of us the middle aged man was accompanying his younger cousin who wanted to immigrate to Israel??!! On a three year work permit to nurse the oldies in the family. Investment about four lakhs, income 50k per month, accommodation n food on the house. Anyone interested? She had a list of Hebrew words with their meanings written in Gujarati script(!) and thought that Israel was a Christian country. I don't think she had ever heard of Jews or Palestine.
I half-heartedly requested them to stay back(I had prior commitment of four days of my life to someone). But I whole-heartedly wanted my granny to come to my house and stay with me for a while. 'Don't you want to see Mumbai?', I advocated. 'We went to the embassy office (at BKC), it was a huge building with tall glasses and the interview room was the tenth floor!!!, she replied trying to impress me, 'It was as good as seeing Bombay for me'. And I know she meant it. It is sunset time of her life, and all that she has gone through in life (and trust me which is a hell freaking lot), she didn't give two hoots to the fast, glam n super fancy life of the city. The conversation turned to immigration, education, money and life. Who ever knew that people from remote 'Mer' (my cast) villages of Gujarat wanted to immigrate not only to UK, USA or Dubai but to Israel. Anything and any place I guess, to escape the rugged and uneducated ignorant heat and dust life of being a Mer, of not knowing a word of Hindi, English or for that matter even proper Gujarati. A world where education was still a taboo, a world where people hadn't even heard of live-in or gay relationships, a world in which people wore clothes more traditional than saris for women and pants for men. A world in which you did not marry outside your cast, a world in which you could say MC-BC in front of your kids and a world in which you can break into a fight the minute you thought you are being wronged. A world in which you owned and drove trucks or did farming. A world in which girls didn't talk to boys, a world in which you wear a tons of gold in the weddings over a cheap sari and weather roughened hair n skin, a world in which you didn't change your mindset even a bit even though you travelled across the world or are living in UK. A world in which concept of spending money, learning or being environmentally friendly did not exist. A world in which girls studied more and boys turned into jerks. A world in which choosing your own life partner clearly meant betraying your parents. A world in which someone has just become the first member of the community to take a position of a judge. A world in which my father was the first person ever to graduate (absolutely against the family's wish and zero financial n moral support) in his village. A world in which I am the first person to work in the aviation industry and it is kind of a big deal, at least to them. A world in which you might get married thrice and still not be happy. A world in which your son would not bother to earn a decent living and you have to worry about feeding your grandchildren. A world in which success and happiness meant getting married to a catch found by your family and having children. This was a world, my grandparent's world, where my granny has waited for more than forty years (and some more to go) to visit her daughter and many siblings in UK. A world that amazes and pains me. I have more amazing details and juicy stories (granny has so many of them!!!) but I cannot spill the beans here. Someday I would like to retire for a while and write a book about this marvellous community and the not so subtle gang lords in it.

I dropped them at the station with a heavy heart. I hope she comes back soon and for longer. I hope life gives us more time together. Amen.


PS-the embassy had a sign in Gujarati announcing that if you spoke any bad words or tried to abuse, the interview would be considered done. Lol. You would understand this only of you were a Mer or you knew other Mers closely.