One of the biggest lessons I'm learning as I get older is that I'm not 17 anymore. Considering I'm double that age, this should be blindingly obvious, but the trouble is that I still feel 17, at least until I do anything out of the ordinary.
I jump down stairs one morning, and the knees write outraged letters to the local newspaper. I get slightly dehydrated, and my head gently cleaves into two.
And this is even after I take a bit of care: exercising regularly and eating moderately for most meals. When I was 17, this schedule would have made me a racing machine.
At 34, it simply keeps me out of the breakdown lane... just about. (If you're double this age and laughing at me, you should know that two of my classmates have diabetes, one has gout, and a close friend, who is a year younger, recently went to a doctor complaining of chest pain.)
I've made a vow to myself that I'm going to grow older as healthy as possible. No saying, "I'm 60 now, too old to go cycling or hiking or swimming."
That's the theory at least... I know what happens to best-laid plans. Even now, my visits to India seem to be timed just as I start to see results from the exercise, and once there, resistance is truly futile.
Delectable
My grandmother, for example, will get up, appear to spend the morning reading the newspaper, and then put 20 different dishes on the table at lunch.
It's all so delectable that "overeating" becomes the new "eating", and the new "overeating"... you don't want to hear about that.
As my cousin R. says, one of his favourite things about India, especially Kolkata, is how the topic of discussion over one meal is what to eat for the next. And then there's the parade of sweets, snacks and drinks that fill the empty hours in between.
Add to this, the reckless approach many Indians have towards food. "If you're going to have a heart attack early, you're going to have it, so enjoy yourself anyway," goes the thinking.
A few years ago, I stopped taking sugar in my tea and actually prefer it without, having discovered (as people who have stopped taking it will tell you) that it has a really strange flavour.
However, when I ask for tea without sugar in India, the reaction usually is: "But you're so young!"
Moderation, you see, is for invalids and the aged, and usually only as long as the symptoms last. It is looked at, variously, as a foreign-acquired silly fad, vanity, unnecessary worry, or the denial of all that is beautiful in life.
But now, with the decline in evidence, I'm beginning to see the wisdom in spacing out the treats so that I can continue to enjoy them all my life, instead of indulging wild until a doctor is forced to tell me, "You touch this again and you'll die."
I wouldn't say I was a health nut, but many of my friends wouldn't agree once they hear that I keep a food diary and exercise six days a week using a heart-rate monitor.
But consider that my previous obsession, just two months ago, was barbeque ribs and cheesecake. And that, in a few months, I'll be going to India for a wedding.
I can promise you that the only diary of food there will be my rapidly growing paunch. I'm just hoping that, over one year, it'll all average itself out, leaving me more or less healthy. For once, I'll be happy to hit even blessed mediocrity.
Gautam Raja is a journalist based in the US.
