Once upon a time I used to blog. Regularly. Blogging was my way of reaching out to the world without making a phone call or catching a bus to meet someone somewhere.

I participated in Blog Hops, took part in blogger events and even had three blogs up and running simultaneoulsy. But today I find that my presence in the blogosphere has whittled down to a few posts on just this one blog.

Is this because I’m like a cat content to lie down as blogs go by?

Was it laziness? Was it depression? Was it overwork?

Perhaps it was a combination of all.

Barring the odd post like the one that went up last week, my writing has been almost non-existent. I haven’t even had time to write down my daily accounts! No wonder then that there haven’t been any visitors to this space. After all, who would like to visit a blank space?

Looking back, it can be put down to two reasons: living in the moment and majorly failing at my No.1 resolution of the year – losing weight.

The difficulties of living in the moment

While living in the moment has kept me from this blog, another distraction has been my continued effort to lose weight. One of the New Year resolutions which most of us make was to lose weight. And like many people, this resolution has come to naught by the middle of the year. This failure has also added to the general feeling of blah that has kept me away from my personal space.

The reasons might sound lame, but as we all know, I’ve been too busy not only living but living in the moment. All this living can be called overwork. Strange as it may sound, I think each moment actually consists of several micro-moments, and trying to consciously live each one to the fullest can be quite a fiddle.

Much like an accordion, the moment seems to expand as you try and fit in ‘living’ every bit of the moment. This happens every second, every minute, every hour and every day till finally a month goes by living in this stretchable moment.

Does this sound confusing? Not really because if you analyse it, living a daily life takes up to 24 hours, and adding in a few unplanned events, the time becomes even more difficult to control.

And I’m not just talking about the emergencies or contingencies but a simple thing like watching the sunset: when you consciously look around and appreciate the sky, the clouds, and perhaps a few birds flying home; while you feel the breeze on your cheeks or wipe away a stray bead of sweat, a line from a verse may surface in your mind. Thus, living in the moment can take a lot of effort and ‘time”.

Climate change and losing weight

Contrary to what people believe, climate change not only affects the world, it affects the people too. At least it has definitely addled my brains.

For instance, 25 C was the hottest it was in my Mumbai while growing up. waAt best it may have touched the occasional 30 C . This summer, however, it reached 40 and just occasionally slipped ten degrees lower. For the first time I understood the phrase ‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’ and being neither of the two, actually stayed home for the better part of the day. I even did something hitherto never done – darkening my room in the afternoon and catching a siesta.

Why losing weight in the summer is a bad idea

The intense summer had made it difficult for me to step out even with the early morning sun because the glare was untenable. I was compelled to make my 10,000 steps, with sunglasses. In addition, I had to carry my water bottle to keep myself hydrated…

How I longed to find a less tedious way of melting away the fat.

The answer came to me one evening as I sat by the poolside watching Ms. Papaya and her friends splash in the pool. I wished I could join in. One of the regular old aunties who waddled around the pool with a noodle, invited me to jump in.

Swimsuits and Noodles

I had a ready excuse: I didn’t have a suitable swimsuit. For years I used to look at my swim suit and wonder why it was so difficult to put on. Was it because of my injured arm which though fixed, still plays up from time to time and makes it difficult to pull up the straps? Or was it because the costume was too tight?

I was being an ostrich refusing to accept the fact that I needed to get a new swimsuit.

Finally, I took the metaphorical plunge and went to Premson’s Bazaar where the salesman promptly pulled up the perfect swimsuit. It checked all the boxes for me: it was Navy but not black, so it would enhance the illusion of slimness, it had pretty white flowers – a print that always cheers me up and it had a skirt that covered up my thighs. But it was 3XL!

What happened to the barrier I had sworn never to cross ?

But worse still horrifying how did the salesman could size me up with just a glance and pick out the perfect size????

I bought it nonetheless in a bid to whittle down the X’s to an L.

So for a while, I walked up and down the pool in my new swimsuit with my new friends and a pink pool-noodle.

And then came the rain

Just as I was getting comfortable in this routine, the rains came upon us. Unlike the normal Mumbai monsoon that comes on 7th June, this year it played truant. And when it came, it was an unusual monsoon . For a large part of the day, dark, heavy clouds would hover over the city, making the heat more oppressive. But the clouds stayed where they were, gathering ominously , waiting perversely to begin an incessant downpour on the weekend.

Though the rains were welcome, this year it rained and rained much more than expected. The IMD ( which we used to ignore for their notoriously wrong predictions) issued flood alerts twice and the city stayed shut for a few days! What happened to the good old Mumbaikar’s Never Say Die spirit?

I remember those school girl days arriving at school, drenched to the bone yet shivering through the day with other children who braved the rain because we were never encouraged to stay home even on a very wet day. “Rain holiday” hadn’t been invented those days and by the time the last straggler stumbled into class by lunch time, the Principal would announce a half day with a caveat that school would remain open the following day.

And the average Mumbaikar plodded on too. Despite train services being cancelled, or people being washed away through open manholes, we braved it all.

Climate change has impacted all of us .

Do raincoats really help?

While the rain were a welcome relief from the heat, the raindrops that would begin to fall just as I set out to walk were rather annoying. I hated that light shower cap of crystal droplets on my hair and carrying an umbrella was quite pointless. So once again I went off to the shop to get myself a raincoat from Decathalon at Atria Mall.

But this raincoat, light though it was made me sweat more because of the heat trapped in while I walked and the hood came over my eyes making it hard to see where I was going.

I then resorted to my last option: walking in the refuge space in our building with the other residents going round and round, trying to avoid banging into each other while the “fat” melted away.

With whimsical weather thwarting my attempts at losing weight, and living in the moment, don’t you think it is challenging to find time to write in this space?

Ciao

p.s. Hope you had a happy Independence day.