I am a bit of a serial monogamist. Not just in relationships, but in pretty much everything in life. I fall in love — inextricably, madly, impetuously— and then before I know it, it is over. Cities, jobs, people, clothes, shoes, furniture— the pattern is the same. Attraction, obsession, cooling-down and indifference.
Like the time I went through a khadi kurta phase, where I amassed large quantities of brightly-patterned handloom and made about a dozen kurtas. For one entire month, that was all I wore to work. It made me feel erudite and highbrow, even a trifle supercilious, I am afraid. “Fast fashion is ruining the lives of our weavers. This is a small price to pay,” I told my long-suffering father high-handedly, when he complained about my clothes’ lack of colour fastness (they left behind large patches of bright pink, red and bottle green on his white shirts).
Until the usual middle-of-the-year sales happened and all my ideals went to pot. I lugged home so many chiffon shirts that I could have done a reverse Scarlett O’Hara with them: there were enough to make curtains for the entire house.
Then there was my home-decoration phase, when I moved out of Chennai and began living alone in Bengaluru. Before I left, I raided the kitchen and the various cupboards at home: many mugs, most of the block-printed bedsheets, a brand new razai and a Ravi Varma print all found their way into my large, red suitcase. I would have even packed the cat if she hadn’t scratched me that morning. I added to the pre-existing stash over that year — an ikat divan cover, a wooden newspaper stand, more books, lots of cutlery, some stupendously ugly melamine plates. Then I moved back to Chennai. Now, all my home furnishing (pillaged and purchased) languishes in that aforesaid red suitcase, smelling of mothballs and neglect.
With exercise too, I go through phases. There was an exceedingly long one — through most of childhood and teens — where I avoided it completely, sneaking into the library, instead of moving my rather large behind (clad in a white divided skirt, probably the least flattering garment ever invented). Then I embraced it, different versions of it, and tried a gamut of classes and workouts. From simple walking and running to aerobics, kick-boxing, TRX, swimming, karate, power yoga, bootcamps, parkour, salsa, jive, zumba, bokwa, body pump, circuit training.
My longest affair was with Ashtanga yoga, all of three years. The esoteric mystique of the practice coupled with fantastic teachers and a tendency to be fairly flexible, made it very appealing to me. Till, my back spasmed during a class and I had to be carried out. So while the remnants of love still remain, I feel a trifle betrayed by yoga — it wasn’t supposed to hurt so much.
My current obsession is weight-training: not pink and blue plastic dumbbells, but the real thing. It is possibly the most unpretty form of training: the callouses on your hands, the red face, the guttural sounds you make when you lift. And you have to be in the present moment when you lift: form is paramount here, you simply do not have the option of slipping into what my yoga teacher calls “moving meditation”.
But it is intensely honest and very, very real. Nothing matters except the strain on your thighs as you squat, the solid thud of a barbell hitting the floor when you deadlift or the dull ache as you try to push out that final press. You cannot cheat, you cannot lie, you cannot pfaff around.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating here — except that after a point it is the chocolate whey and boiled chicken that you choose instead of cherry-topped trifle. It is almost like that good friend you will grow to love after a string of capricious bad boys. Long may it last.
