A healthy life sans style.

The Mrs. decided.
Sometime between 1:10 and 1:12:16 pm, Saturday last.
That my lifestyle needed change.
(The sans style comment is reflection, wholly my own.)

I know the time for sure.
1:10 is when I reached home after the football game.
Feeling half dead and looking all the way done.
1:12 is when I pulled out a can of beer.
1:12:16 is when I crushed it.
(Well, temperatures did go up last week.)

And when the Mrs. starts listing,
you wish your worst enemy would drop in to visit.
Yes, Medha Patkar even.

I smoke, yes.
Like those Mississippi steam boats, yes.
That's out then, yes.

I like my drop of whisky.
Also whiskey.
Not much of it, mind you.
Just the tinkle of a little amber after a long day's work.
That's out, yes.

Now tinkling is for weekend weekends.
But wait, weekends are when we socialise!
So there go comfort evenings in my comfort chair with my comfort whisky meandering about a few comfort cubes in my carefully procured comfort glasses.

I like my meats.
Ok, I love my meats.
Show me one honest man who doesn't!
"But red meat...."
So that's that, brothers.
From chomping, it's down to chewing the curd.
The toothpick, is now an accessory.

Now we come to the small matter of the panting.
Recorded between the time I reached home that fateful Saturday and the time I crushed the can.

Health clubs! I hate them!
To me it is an expensive way to burn the effects of expensive tastes.
And the pre-capitalist in me explodes with indignation at this indignity!
I'll take the road, I say!
But between you and me, before the traffic takes over, this city sucks.
At 5:30, it smells like one big pit.
Yeah, like cess-pit, like septic tank, like crap.
As for getting multi-gyms and treadmills home, am firmly against it.
We have tons of space around the house for drying clothes.
So I amble around, exploring the pre-dawn eccentricities of the colony.
Jolly good, I say.
Yes, 'thande safed chadaron pe jaage der tak', is out.

By the way,
crushing cans on forehead and going 'buuuuhahahahaha'
is also out.

I like to take off on a bike, every now and then.
A couple of days with the gold old steed.
And the blissful monotony of the road.
"But what with your bad back...."
Yes, now it is the blissful monotony of the garage.

Thou shalt not buy more books when the great unread gather dust on thy shelves.
There goes the only reason one likes books.
The possibility that some day it might be a good read.
Now that I have, oh well.
Yes, fortnightly donations to Landmark are out.

Let's come to the immediate provocation.
I have just been sent an apple.
To be had at 1700 Hrs.
It's one of those varieties a middle-class, Catholic upbringing warns you about.
The ones with stickers on them.
Cost of apple: Rs. 50 (approx.)
Cost for driver to come and drop apple in a car that offers 7kmpl in city = 52 x .8 = Rs. 41.60.
Depreciation/wear and tear = Rs. 20.

I have with me a very healthy apple that costs Rs. 101.60 (approx.)
(This is not counting the many monsters that Pranab Babu is, at this moment, planning to shove down my pants.)

At 1700 Hrs., I shall stare out of the window.
Inhale deep.
And wait for the weekend, 76 far hours away.
I ain't eating that apple.