Thursday, November 13, 2008

Passion for exercise:part2

RAINS!!! the rains came slashing down and my WWW program faced its first major hurdle!!Monday morning, the alarm woke me up!! A sleepy smile crossed my face the moment I heard the rain!! The next instant..the smile was swept away by the realisation that I CANT POSSIBLY GO WALKING WHEN ITS RAINING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I consoled myself thinking I d walk in the evening and snoozed back to sleep.... feeling like heaven to be able to snuggle into my bedsheets and get some more sleep!!
It seemed like the sky too was a co-conspirator to make me round!! It just wouldn't stop pouring!!It was over a week now and the rains wouldn't stop!!! That quiet Saturday afternoon, I was sitting by the window watching the rain wishing it would all stop and my WWW program will gather momentum again!!
My amma was on the phone.. talking to her friend, about how the rain is inspiring her to make hot samosas( fried food!! oh! not again!) ! I was amazed at her ability to make conversations about the rainy season of all things....(since I had nothing productive to do, I was listening to her chatting away to glory) she was busy exchanging notes with her friend on how to dry clothes when its raining outside, on how to protect all of us from malaria.....!!!!
I was bored.. decided to pick a book to read and when I just left the room I overheard my amma complaining to her friend about how she found it so difficult to walk down our flooded roads, and how she practically swam her way home!!! That ONE sentence changed my lifestyle for the next few months!! I decided to go swimming!!!!
I immediately started working on this idea of swimming!! I went online, figured out swimming academies that had indoor pools and good coaches!!I waded my way through the stagnant waters and got myself a swim suit and a good pair of goggles! in all excitement, I jumped into the pool..and after 4 weeks of coaching..I was finally SWIMMING!!I swam like a fish (or so i thought!!) Swimming was fun...! life seemed perfect and I was very happy that very soon I am gonna shed all the extra fat!!
At this point, yet another disaster hit my weight losing spree!!!
My amma has this habit of spending her afternoon reading magazines and that habit of hers killed the happiness and contentment that swimming gave me!! She came across in one of the health magazines that exposure to chlorine in harmful to the health and that put a full stop to my swimming pursuit!!
(To stop me from sulking about!!)My amma promised to find me a good yoga teacher!! She solemnly spoke at length about how yoga calms mind and body!!! I wasn’t given much of a choice and I agreed, though I was convinced that the magazine guys just added some information to fill space and never really meant it!! (and they too were conspiring to make me round!!)
Like a butterfly moving from one place to another in search of honey, I kept jumping from one yoga centre to another, trying to master the art of yoga! Each of them had a different style of teaching and were doing their best to make me learn the art! I couldn’t really develop a liking for yoga( No offence to anybody practicing this art! Infact I look up to you guys!) because it was all too quiet a process for somebody like me!!I mean, they expected me to open my mouth only to breathe!!! I was made to sit quietly in a place for too long and it all seemed like a punishment! I wanted to do something that had music, rhythm and that which was more fun!! And that which didn’t expect me to be quiet for too long!!
And I switched to aerobics!! If I thought that finding right people to teach me aerobics was the biggest problem, I was mistaken because doing aerobics by itself seemed a bigger problem! It all seemed too fast for me and I just couldn’t stand the body pains that it gave me!
From aerobics I jumped to playing badminton and finding the playing partner became quite a task!!Over the next six months, I gave gymming a shot and realised exercising indoors is not my cup of tea! The loud music, the smell of sweat along with the room freshener, the long ques for the treadmill made the gymming a not-so-great idea!!
Life’s come a complete circle .... its almost a year now and cleaning up the cupboard (that had the photo album that started the weight losing spree ) is still a part of my to-do list! A pair of walking shoes, a bag containing swim suit and goggles, sets of track suits and t-shirts, bills from gym, yoga centre pamphlets is all lying in the cupboard adding to the mess! Sitting in front of the cupboard , looking at the mess and at all the ‘exercise equipments and accessories ‘ , I stopped for a moment to reflect on the happenings of the past one year! I was wondering how to stop this stupid feeling about being round!
In that one moment, I discovered the SIMPLEST way to stop feeling bad about being round...... is to start LOVING the fact that am round!!! That’ all that’s there to it!! Having realised this, it seemed like about ten kilos had been lifted off my chest!!!!(and i secretly wish and genuinely believe that someday ten kilo’s would be lifted off my body too!!!)
I smiled at myself in the mirror pinching my round, ‘healthy’ cheeks!! After many months, I tasted chocolate..... Slowly unwrapped the foil.. .put bits of dairy milk in my mouth and enjoyed the taste and smell of chocolate.....
The happiness, the love for myself no matter how I am round or not, along with the taste of chocolate made me smile to myself!! It felt so good to be alive....SO good that being round didn’t really matter!! I felt enlightened that I have figured out the BEST way to stop feeling round!!In that moment of enlightenment and happiness I gave up the craze I had, to stop feeling round.... !!
Even now there are days, when I take a brisk walk...... Days when I swim...... days when I exercise... days I don’t...... but it is only now that I have found the true passion for exercise...... where am not driven by the craze to stop feeling round...... but driven by the very love for exercising!!! :-)
So.........Being a snowball doesn’t really matter anymore!! As long as I know am a happy snowball!!!! :-)

1 comment:

Ammu said...

Hi,
This is Sharmila, Great usage of appropriate words at the right place. Good topic to discuss about. Keep it up.