Growing up -Part 1: Life, People, Health and Sonet
It’s literally 5 AM when I am writing this!
How long has it been? I think, close to 5 years since I moved to Bangalore to start my new, independent, corporate life. I’ve made interesting friends, had unique experiences, travelled solo to 4 countries, lost a big chunk of my hairline, became Vitamin D deficient, discovered my love for interior decor, got heart-broken, rode a roller-coaster(I am terrified of heights), got kidney stones, switched job twice, started working out, rejected a job in Amsterdam, lost some friends, shed some of my introvert skin, and realised that I am an uncontrollable shopper.
In my early 20s, when life just opened to all the potential I could have, I had not a clue what to do. Coming to Bangalore was once a dream, and now it’s the city that has so much imbibed itself in me that I can hardly think of moving somewhere else. That can be of course because it’s the first dingy town that made me independent, that supported me during those tough, lonely times. It’s hard to let it go, just like your first crush, your first job, or your anything first.
I have never believed in the concept of destiny, but looking back, when I connect the dots, I can’t help but feel so awed that had I not made that choice, had I not decided to take that leap of faith, had I just been 5 minutes late, I wouldn’t be here. I think most of you feel the same. We can’t understand the little choices we make now, but they affect our lives in a much more profound way than we can ever realise.
A few days back I had to attend a full-day orientation for experienced hires in my office. You know, those mandatory sessions which your manager forces you to, and my worst fear about these sessions is that I’ll have to perform group activities with strangers. I was planning on skipping the session, but finally decided to attend. I met this girl who chose to sit beside me and we started talking. When we did our intros, she spelled her name as S-O-N-E-T, and I thought, ‘She looks like a Punjabi, it must be “Soneet” ’. You know, we all have these stereotypes that we don’t even realise. We take one look at a person and immediately judge so much about them and that starts happening more and more often as we grow older. Anyways, over the course of a session where we are supposed to know more about each other, I realised that her name was actually “Sonet” as in Sonnet, a category of poems which are of 14 lines, and I thought, “what a unique name!”. I also understood that she was a Malayali, and it was a session on cultural biases! Look at the irony of the situation. I met so many new people that day, and I just thought, “I was planning to skip this.”
Adulthood gives you many realisations, you become calmer, bolder, smarter, in the way you carry yourself, in the way you be around people, in the way you show your love, you become more secure about your abilities and even more insecure about your cracks.
I believe that we all have these cracks, these imperfections, like those cracks in an old bone china plate. Nobody is perfect, and we tend to obsess over those cracks, feeling like we can shatter anytime. We beat ourselves up, thinking why aren’t we as perfect as the other person, but what we don’t or rather CAN’T see is that the other person too has cracks of his own which we are unaware of. The goal should be to find people who can run a finger over those cracks and yet don’t care about them. The first set of such people is your family, they really don’t care about your cracks, you are just YOU for them. And if you can find just one another person who can make you feel so, who can show you that it’s ok to have those cracks and divert your mind off them, that’s the kind of person you should be with. Some of us find that person early in life and some others take a lifetime. So, if you meet someone who just makes you feel comfortable to be you, with whom you can be as animated as you can be, and still don’t feel judged, make that choice of NOT letting that person go.
Do you still talk to all those people whom you used to, a few years back? When I was younger, I always felt that the friends I have made are for life, that we all will grow old together and it’s almost funny to see how those friendships lost to the onslaught of time. However, it does have a silver lining. On this treacherous path to adulthood, you identify those who truly care about you. I know people who I thought were just acquaintances, but they still check up on me every few months, people who I was never close to are the ones who know my deepest secrets. One of my closest friends is one whom I used to share my bus ride with, to school. We didn’t even talk everyday and when we did, it was just for a few hours in that bumpy ride, and here we are today, 10 years later!
People change, they just make the choice that you are not important anymore for them, or they just forget. And yet, some choose to have you in their lives. So if you receive that text from someone whom you have not listened from for a long time, and they are not reaching out just to ask you for a referral, or a favour, make a note that they are important and try to involve them in your life.
BTW, are you also talking about healthy eating and yoga these days? As a kid I was always the typical one, loved chips and kurkure and maggi, hated veggies and fruits, and hated sweets. Consequently, I have been a skinny kid all my life, even through college, and had a number of health problems early in life. I used to fall sick so frequently that my friends used to joke that it’s a surprise I hadn’t fallen sick that month.
However, something happened to me over the past 2 years, and I started to eat a lot more junk, peri peri fries every night, chicken popcorn, big chocolate ice-cream bucket while binge watching shows, waffles, pizzas twice or thrice a week, and my closet used to be full of chips and biscuits. What do you expect happened? I started gaining, of course! For the first time in my life, I stopped using belts to keep my jeans stay in its place, I got double chin, most of clothes became too tight to be worn. My friends started to make fun of me coz I became fat, that was something new. Earlier it was because I was too skinny and now coz I am bulky, quite a shift haan. It’s funny, that you don’t realise when you’re gaining, you realise it only when you have gained a substantial amount.
Anyways, last year I decided that it was enough, and I had to make a change. I researched online, read about keto and intermittent fasting, and all sorts of fad diets which are running ablaze now. If you go online, you have so many people giving so many advices, that it’s difficult to follow one path straight. I realised I can’t do keto, can’t always have restaurant made food, and my new job wasn’t giving me enough time to cook keto dishes at home. So, I decided to start with intermittent fasting and started tracking my calories intake. I also joined the gym in my office and decided that this time, I’ll stick with it. 4 months later, I have lost 4% of my body fat and gained 1kg of muscle mass. It’s slow, it’s not much, but it’s something.
And now I see everybody talking about healthy lifestyle and healthy eating. When we all friends meet, most of the times we talk about how healthy we are eating, what new study somebody read about, and when we should not eat. It’s a paradigm shift, from our teenage, where we ate anything and everything, anytime. Makes me feel old, that our bodies are not able to handle the junk anymore as it used to. But, I think it’s time we did start thinking about our health both mentally and physically.
