Counting calories in India

Youre a normal Indian paying your taxes and minding your business in a quickly maddening world. On some days, you take the wrong route or bargain with a street-vendor but overall, youre a decent human being trying to be a little better every day. You read about calories and calorie counting. As a rational person, you KNOW that the only way to really lose weight is by being in a calorie deficit. You decide to give it a shot. After all, Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm, said Winston Churchill. But then, Churchill also caused the famine in Bengal, where people starved for food! No good can come from overthinking, you tell yourself. Food is a privilege. Annam Brahma. You shall be respectful towards food and eat mindfully. Lunch, you remind yourself, can be managed. Most young Indians have sacrificed lunch at the altar of a job. Once, it was a warm affair cooked lovingly at home. Now, its a sad sandwich between meetings, or a burger eaten in front of a dead screen. Youve controlled lunch; conquered the highest peak. You pat yourself on the back metaphorically, of course. Doing it physically will require further weight loss. And then, the weekend arrives. You step out with your friends and order a seemingly harmless Amritsari kulcha. Its Amritsar, after all. The land of sports, athletes and medals. You wolf down the kulcha, Google the calories, and BAM! 830 calories gone. The channa with it? Another 340. The lassi (you heard bhaiyya say malai maarke) another 400! In one sitting, youve consumed the recommended calorie intake of a small Himalayan village. You resolve to redeem yourself through discipline. You skip dessert. And the saunf (80 calories). You walk around your building like an intergalactic hamster, and your phone sends you a notification You lost 70 calories!. Only to realise that its worth ONE Tiger biscuit. Heartbreaking. Like that one lonely tiger roaming around in a private zoo. You meet a friend, you have chai. You take a smoke break, you have chai. A smoke break takes you chai. By evening, youve consumed five chais each cup a 200-calorie colonial tax to the British. You return home defeated, like an Indian opener on a bouncy Australian pitch. They say you should have breakfast like a founder, lunch like a manager and dinner like an intern. Dinner is your final shot, your redemption meal. You ordered idli-vada. No! Strike out the vada (fried). Just two idlis 200 calories. Perfect! You have the idlis and theyre tasty. As you bask in the glory of your willpower, you realise that you forgot to check the calories in the chutney! BAM, another 300 calories. At the end of Day 1, the scoreboard reads 2,243 for the loss of self-respect. Maybe calorie counting is a Western concept, you tell yourself. These white people took away our gold and spices and created a system to limit us from eating what remains. You ponder on these thoughts as the morning chai arrives. Its a new day. The sun is up, and one must go about trying to earn an honest living. You take a sip. And ask for a biscuit. Bam! Thats 300 ca You know what? Let it be. Youre just an Indian, trying to get by in a quickly maddening world. Kohli and Rohit have moved on, and so must you. We are the land of honey and milk. Calorie counting doesnt suit our ilk. What we need is calorie estimating. Or calorie hoping. Or calorie praying. (The writers views are personal)