DIETERS' ANONYMOUS

Bringing the kids back from school-their last day 
of the year. They are a noisy bunch, ecstatic, thinking 
of the long vacation ahead. Home is just a few blocks 
away. The kids just cannot wait to get in and throw 
away their books-for good!

Huff and puff

huff and puff

I can hear Anju slogging at the myriad machines

trying to melt away her ample derriere

and all those protrusions at the wrong places.

That was a couple of months ago..

The kids’ summer holidays are over

at last to pack them off to school..

after the struggle to keep them occupied

for two long months..

what a relief!

After the razzmatazz of the past few weeks,

chaos reigning supreme everywhere,

suddenly the days seems to have grown longer

with time on my hands to call my own.

That’s when I decided Ill drop in at Anju’s place

With Anju around, time definitely flies

There is no end to what she knows about others

probably she knows others better than she knows herself

or even better than they know their own selves!

I decide to buy her a diet drink

after all I don’t want to be the temptress

to break her fitness regimen

She must have gotten herself an all new wardrobe by now

After all, at the pace of her work-out

it would be impossible to wear her old clothes

that would surely flap about her.

I feel rather self-conscious of the flab that Im carrying

around my waist. May be I can ask Anju to teach me a

few tricks to melt it down in real quick time.

I can hear the chimes of the doorbell echo inside Anju’s house.

I feel my eyeballs popping out of my head

Anju has bloated to twice her earlier self

She gives me a guilty look and I feel equally silly

with the cans of diet drinks which seem to mock her

Over a cup of very sweet milky coffee (may be that’s

the secret of her girth) she confesses how she resolutely

stuck to her workouts but ended up bingeing on twice

her normal quantity of food later. The cycle went on

uninterrupted until one fine day Anju realized this wasn’t

taking her anywhere and she was much better off without

her punishing work out schedules.

Now the machines are neatly stacked in a corner of 

her room. But of course they aren’t wasted

They make good clotheslines and shelves!