High

There were several things on my mind as my plane took off. It was an important moment. The stewardess served water and peanuts. The girl sitting next to me took her shoes off. Somebody burped. I put my headphones on. Zeppelin, as usual.

One of the many thoughts on my mind was about transitions. I was looking at the orange and blue of the sunset. But then my plane had to take off. I was closer to the sun, but farther from the sunset. Goodbye, I am thousands of feet higher.

Then my mind was blown away. The sun had set already. I was flying east. Looking out and down from my window, I saw all the light that is there in the world. It wasn’t enough. I could only see vague outlines of attempts that people make to be able to function together. I saw millions of tiny sources of illumination for people to be able to see just not enough. Because I couldn’t see enough. From so high up, I didn’t see enough.

So, there were things on my mind. The girl next to me said she was visiting home after long, first time after getting married. I asked her how being married was. She said one should try it once, “definitely”. I said, “I’ll try your continental meal”, to the stewardess. “There is no dairy in it right?” Following the affirmation I chewed through the dairy-free fish filet. Ha.  But that isn’t as vegan as I got. The dark chocolate mousse cake had to go – to the girl next to me. I always take the cherry on top of the cake. So I took the cherry on top, as usual.

Strange, Stranger or Neither?

Some time ago I took this American guy to an Indian restaurant for the first time. No, this post isn’t about the food. After we left the place he told me that one of the male employees at the restaurant had been staring at me inappropriately till he caught his eyes in the act. “Oh well!” I thought. “Indian men don’t know how to behave in public”, I said. No sooner had I said those words my years as a teenage girl in India flashed in front of my practiced eyes. No, this isn’t about the incorrigible Indian men either. In fact, it’s about one particularly incorrigible Indian man.

 

In about three months I’ll turn twenty-one. That’s how old the stick-figure said he was about five minutes after he suddenly sneaked up beside me on his bike (Or did he say twenty-three?) I was on mine too, at the same time, on the same trail I went biking on everyday. This was eight years ago when I was barely twelve.

 

It has always been difficult to shock me. I did not flinch or gasp when he appeared unexpectedly. I recognized the face, he lived somewhere near where I took my dance lessons. He said his name was Rohit. Regardless, he was since known as Ashwini.

 

(Why Rohit became Ashwini is another story which will be more relevant if I ever decide to analyze my best friend’s amazing sense of humor and one of a kind personality on my blog.)

 

Ashwini was everywhere. Near home, at school, at the bus-stop, the candy shop and all those places a twelve-year old would go to. He was becoming almost as inseparable as my best friends, who were becoming increasingly bothered by his inescapable presence. I wondered what would they have been like if they really knew what was happening.

 

Ashwini was good at sneaking but sometimes he just wouldn’t bother. He knew where I lived, where my friends lived and he knew when I would be alone on the street. He would just walk up to me and then talk a little bit. Once he tried talking to me in Hindi, which wasn’t his language but was mine. I still remember his words and I sometimes still amusedly wonder if he really knew what he was saying. “Aaj aapne kya sabzi khaya?”

 

He once came to me and said that he was suffering from jaundice and was prescribed bed-rest but ignored his doctor to come see me. Another time he asked, “Don’t you know I love you?”

 

Self-introspection always retains some bias. But let’s try and analyze what was going on in my mind all those years ago while I was being smothered with all this maniac attention from this stranger, this stalker. I know one thing I wasn’t pleased. Sometimes the displeasure edged frustration, but looking back I find it so strange that I really wasn’t that bothered.  I was embarrassed in a way, who wouldn’t be – the guy chose to wear bell-bottomed pants … and those were the nineties. I even shied away from telling my friends and parents how vigorously I was being stalked. But I wasn’t scared from this guy. Didn’t I notice he was a foot taller than me? And did I mention he was at least 9 years older than me. Did he not know that I was only twelve?

 

Although he never sexually abused me, some people whom I’ve spoken to about this say he was a pedophile.

 

Was Ashwini a pedophile? Or is there a possibility that he just did not realize that I was only a little girl? Was he truly in love with a child about a decade younger? Or was he just fooling around with me?

 

Regardless, I chose to give him the ‘indifferent’ treatment for the three years he continually followed me around the whole town. Sometimes I would yell at him and ask him to leave me alone. But generally I gave him the ‘I don’t know you stranger (although I have seen you a million times), so don’t talk to me’ look. I sometimes wonder, by not taking a tough stance against him, did I make big mistake? Ashwini is still out there somewhere, but is he victimizing some one else as I type? I was lucky in the fact that he never affected my blunt and naive (read dumb) soul too much, but would all twelve-year old girls be as cold (read dumb) and insensitive as I was?

 

I pray to God Ashwini did better. And that I, was just a phase.

That’s right bitc*es, I am a skinny bitch!

In other (more polite) words, and for those of you who didn’t quite get it very accurately, I am a vegan.

 

I happened to stumble upon a review of the popular diet book, Skinny Bitch, and surprisingly found myself provoked enough to criticize the article’s, and consequently the authoress’, self-manifested ignorance and an almost piteous self-deceit, on cyberspace.

 

According to the authoress, admittedly one of those “junk food-addicted fatties”, even veganism can make us fat (in her case, fatter) if you “really put (your) mind to it”. She concludes saying, “I’d rather be a fat pig”.

 

I normally would not be so rude, but this woman has probably put one too many weight-loss guides back on the shelf, disappointed that the writer didn’t recommend having fried-chicken and asked her to exercise. C’mon, doesn’t weight-loss come in a pill!!! Since the 60’s!!

 

She then, very intelligently, singles out the three most important reasons for obesity……“depression, pregnancy, genetics”. Well, *sigh* no wonder!

 

But this amazing lady is not all that disoriented. She has a philosophical side to herself and has given it all some thought. She condones consuming “booze; sugar; sweeteners; fat; caffeine; dairy” because they are the ones that “make our short, brutish lives that bit more bearable”. How true! Yeah life is tough when you are fat, and who’s ever heard of an alcoholic overweight carnivore feeling suicidal! It’s always us skinny bitches feeling depressed and rushing to rehab.

 

They say you can accomplish anything if you really put your mind to it, but getting fatter on a vegan diet – and believe this because it comes straight from this horse’s mouth – fat chance! And I’ll explain why.

 

When you cut meat and dairy from your diet, you also cut and may be sometimes even eliminate trips to McDonald’s, phone calls to Pizza-Hut and instead park outside a Subway or order a Chinese Take-out. The cookies, cakes and milkshakes go away, and most of the times you end up replacing sucrose with fructose. At least till McDonald’s puts at least 5 vegan items on its dollar menu and soy alternatives for cheese and eggs become readily available.

 

For the sheer reason, that it takes time and effort to find unhealthy and high calorie vegan food, the vegan diet works. I guess all the diets work in similar ways, restricting unhealthy food to cut calories. All of them require effort and commitment. The distinction in the vegan diet is that you not only trying to lose weight, you are helping save lives and the environment.

 

So when the girl with a hat and an apron behind that Subway counter yells “Cheese?” you say “No thanks” and immediately cut a hundred calories and your stomach doesn’t really miss those two 0.01 inch thick white slices. Besides, as a matter of fact waistlines benefit as much from what vegans eat as from what vegans do not eat. You eat rice and beans instead of pizza for dinner and grill vegetables instead of hamburgers on that barbecue grille.

 

Oh yeah, I’ve heard about the Atkins diet. Less carbs, more proteins. Application wise, less pasta more beef. I’ll tell you why it does not work. How many chicken fingers does it take to fill up the stomach of a 180 pound female? Very conservatively, she has to have 6 pieces or 960 calories. Otherwise, she can have Pasta with almost any vegan sauce or 600 calories. Although it’s a debate, but Atkins himself probably didn’t die very healthy. Read http://www.snopes.com/medical/doctor/atkins.asp

 

But may be you don’t want to lose weight. Like me, you want to maintain or may be even put on some. May be you get skeptical, thinking “where am I going to get my calories from??”  I won’t lie to you, it’s not easy. If you have the appetite of my room-mate it might even be a bit too audacious. But it’s possible. It’s funny that the writer of the article in scrutiny mentions soy latte prefixed with “skinny”. 16 oz of Soy Latte has 210 calories, and soy-milk does not come skimmed. At Starbucks, you can get a low fat latte that has no more than 160 Calories. But you really don’t have to guzzle down soy lattes to keep looking your fabulous self. This is how I do it –

 

Food Item	Servings	kCal/serving	Total kCal
Rice/grains	3.5	216	756
Soy Milk Low fat	1	70	70
Vegetables	5	20	100
cereal	1.5	128	192
legumes, protein	2.5	266	665
fruits( Usually Banana)	2	110	210
Other (bread, jelly, peanut butter, chips)	N/A	N/A	~200
Juice	1	120	120

 

So that adds up to about 2300 Calories which is the recommended amount for my weight (122 lbs) and daily activity.

 

* The Article in question can be read at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-457277/Do-I-want-Skinny-B–h-Fat-chance.html

 

Due to the nature of the review I wrote about, the article focuses on weight-loss for girls. But I hope the male readers get an insight into the advantages of veganism too. For more information, please visit the links for Nutrition Facts and Go Vegan located on my homepage.

 

PS – I haven’t read Skinny Bitch. I have been Vegan for 6 months now. And I wasn’t always 122 lbs :)

Introducing the Authoress

So is there anything better than talking about oneself?? wink

 

On second thoughts, that happened to form in the past 30 or so seconds I spent contemplating the rest of this post, is there anything more challenging? So how may times am I going to stroke that Backspace key to may be avoid or just sufficiently mask any self-flattery or unawareness or even untruthfulness while trying to not come across as a paperback with that irritatingly tight spine …when really, on third thoughts, and after many strokes of that backspace key, may be I am just erasing my hesitations.

 

So yeah, I like to think. :)

 

I spent my early years in the quiet eastern state of Tripura in East India and grew up in a small town near the coastline of the Bay of Bengal. My final two years in India were spent in the capital city, New Delhi. Since 2005, I have been in the US. Here I learned, truly for the first time, because here I finally chose who I want to be.

 

I am a satisfied young girl with truckloads of memories to fill innumerable pages of a personal diary that does not exist. I have miles, may be tens of thousands of miles to go but in about the quarter that I have walked through I have felt the breeze of life so full in my face, sometimes fragrant and light, other times cold and hard. I have laughed like a clown and cried like a baby, fallen in love and had my heart broken, lost faith and found it again. And I can’t wait for more.

 

But before everything, I am really your average 20 yr old college girl with that usual fetish for gorgeous shoes and a mission to save the world from evil!

 

Five things I Love About Me –

My self-control – surprises me.

My faithful immune-system – has never cheated on me…yet.

My spiritual clarity – what’s right and what’s wrong may be your dilemma, not mine.

My long, black and thick eyelashes, oh did I mention they are long :P

My imagination.

 

Five things I hate about myself

My BMI- always too close to 20.

My clumsiness – u have to be with me to find out.

My knees, there I said it.

My temper.

The natural color of my skin.

 

So that’s an introduction about me. To find out the rest, keep checking my blog J

 

~PEACE for all