This Diwali I headed to one of the umpteen Diwali parties and picked up some really unexpected life lessons. Just like one should know when to stop eating, one should know when to exit a party, and that too gracefully. Also arriving late is extremely fashionable as the mood of the place is just right to pick up the Diwali vibes, so thats one about timing, there is always a just right in time. But more importantly, lessons came unexpectedly on health and loving the human body. Seeing a transformation in about 45 days, it really seems like we can sculpt and architect our bodies. While the average party goers are notorious for lifestyle issues, the scale of people who are sworn into salads or a workout regime is just growing by the numbers. Dont eat dairy brigades are topped by don’t eat gluten brigades, which are in turn topped by dont eat sugar brigades. Even for the fresh live jalebis, a season favorite, the line goes like pehle aap, pehle aap, just cause one clearly does not want to feast.
The only feasting that happens is with the eyes and the only eating with the nose or so I surmise. And then there are those that go the whole way forward, giving up on all the food we call festive and lapping up delicious natural fare, thereby guarding their health and in effect wealth. No maida, puts out most the unnecessary, no sugar takes care of the rest. As an alternative to building wealth, the side effect is building health. And in that there is remarkable merit. Smoking became unfashionable since the dum maaro dum era, then sitting became unfashionable in the next era, today a bunch of things are unfashionable as research becomes more fashionable, health does too. This Diwali it seemed more fashionable to be on a research based diet than in the latest Sabyaschi, great for the pocket and for the real estate space of the house. There is obviously more to it that meets the eye, and when one delves deep happiness is then only skin deep, just like beauty.
This Diwali may Goddess Lakshmi bless you with poorer appetites, an aversion to sugar, a dislike for the consumption of maida, take you far away from manufacturing plants and in corollary a lover of natural plants, a seeker of movement and towards working out if not working and thereby bringing dhan in more ways than one. Happy Diwali!
Vedasri Siddamsetty 