Friends , Weight Loss and Photoshop

Photocredit : ligherleiter.blogspot.com

Photocredit : 70pounds.com

My friend Phil was obsessed with losing weight ; I'm sure many of us are but I can very much assure you that he was more obsessed with it than many of you folks...
Phil had this one aim in life , to look as slim and dashing as Brad Pitt or George Clooney in their heydays...

He devised many weight loss plans and at one stage even contemplated joining one of those "World Famous" programmes.
His first breakthrough came during college, where he suddenly and ecstatically screamed, "Whoopee!!! I'm 10 kilos lighter!". It was true, and I was happy for him; but had I known that this was the trigger for his obsession, I would have stopped him.
He then realised that his initial 10 kilo meltaway was due to a change in diet, which somehow led to him starving himself.
Phil had changed, his cheery deposition was replaced by a more unstable one, something like those radioactive isotopes... His next step involved gym workouts, which kind of worked for a while. But Phil wasn't one of those very patient blokes ,he wanted results , FAST and so, soon he was back to his starvation regimen.
One day it dawned on him to try out slimming pills...fortunately/unfortunately , he put those away quite quickly.. apparently his body thought the pills were a food source and rendered them useless.

I must add that Phil was a connoiseur for rich,tasty as well as continental food, so it wasn't unusual to see a few shawarmas or burgers make their way into his diet plan...He deserved to binge once in a while , he said.
So a few months passed and he was apparently surprised that he wasn't making progress.

But Phil wasn't the guy who would give up that easy ; he wanted to show the world that he was still the same ; slim and trim .. which led to photoshopped images on his profile pages...One of the best uses of the "skew" feature , I must admit.
It wasn't surprising that Phil never made it to our reunions, apparently he always had some appointment or the other which happened to crop up at exactly the same date and time.

I finally did manage to run into Phil though; a chance meeting at the railway station. The expression on his face was timeless "Don't recognise me, don't....don't...SHI....Hey! Wassap!"

To be fair, I must say Phil actually DID manage to lose a few pounds ; no longer did he have to visit the tailor for custom - fit clothes . But he still had a long way to go , to attain that perfect figure he always wanted... Until then, he said , photoshop is my savior !

5 Rupees

Photocredit : punjabiportal.com

It was a hot summer morning in April; not that it isn't usually hot in this month but the fact that it had rained the previous night ought to have cooled things down a bit; apparently lots of things happen without making sense these days so I guess this is one of those few...
I walked past the cobbler who sat against a wall of the Medical College ; he looked up at me, expecting a customer; on realizing the negative, he bent down, and carried on with his work, tapping and stitching the tattered shoes of an impatient schoolboy.

A few more steps brought me to my grocery store.Being a bachelor, I usually purchase provisions for a week ; sometimes my purchases would elicit weird looks, for i'm sure it would be hard to charge for something that cost just 6rupees a kilo when all i would buy was around 50gms!! I took my shopping basket to the cashier...95 Rupees! I fished out a fresh 100 Rupee note from my wallet... crisp as a cracker. The cashier accepted it with a smile and returned me a 5 Rupee note...I put the change in my wallet and headed home.

At home, I decided to count my change, when the 5 rupee note caught my attention.It had something inscribed on ,I decided to read it.

5 and 10 Rupee notes have a historical importance, each of them have their own story to tell..
IOU's which were made around 5 years ago,or perhaps someone's telephone number was urgently copied on it after a frantic but unsuccessful hunt for a piece of paper.
Or maybe a few odd calculations ,a list of names of people to call for a party,the name of the medicine pill that you wanted to buy and had forgotten the doctors slip behind but had written it down just in case....

The 5 rupee note was the poor man's post-it note...a true upholder of Gandhian virtue...These are now in short supply as 5 rupee coins have forayed into the circulation ;now the 10 rupee notes graciously offered to serve the impatient Indian,their smooth pale saffron surfaces previously untouched by pen , pencil or inksmeared fingers...