Battle with Bulge

 

 

The Battle of Bulge was a landmark battle in World War II. Born after that war, I am only acquainted with its variants and that too in a civilian setting. I could easily visualize the famed actions, in a comical sense, during a morning or evening walk.

 

Walking could be for pleasure or with a purpose or as a means to spend time. I invite this type, to enjoy the spectacle of the Battle with the Bulge. A word of caution: Be wise not to make fun of the walkers - may be one day far in the future, we both might be participants!

 

The ideal place to witness this march past is a park or a play ground in the neighbourhood. To blend well with the crowd, turn up in your walking gear. To derive the maximum benefit out of these exercises, keep your eyes sharp (mindful walking) and allow your imagination to roam, on this toll free number ‘0 00 00 1 0 00 00’. Here you will certainly get the honour of shaking bellies or rubbing shoulders - with dignitaries sporting a bulge in the middle.

 

The former depends on the bulging belly you have and the later if don’t have one.

 

This war game is known as the Battle with the Bulge. Occasionally the added attraction will be the belly dance.

 

The foot soldiers, drafted from multi-specialty clinics of cardio-vascular and diabetes, trained hard to fight for this Battle with the Bulge.

 

The moment a doctor serves the ultimatum – exercise or else - a queue forms in front of sportswear shops for shoes and track-suits. Audio shops are visited for loading melodies in to a memory card. Fortunate are the ones who could lay his hands on an iPod of Apple to lend ears to it. May be he, just remembered the old adage “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”.

 

Then the hunt for a suitable location starts - to walk at will. Here the most persistent help will come from the spouse and her friends – each holding a doctoral thesis on “shedding others’ belly”. They will be very careful to choose the war field with a motley walking crowd of gentlemen with dour faces and a few older men turning out in mod dresses, sticking to a ‘belle non grata’ dictat.

 

No such ‘friendly advice’ will be forthcoming for a spinster.

 

Before a walk in the park, there is a need to brush up your vocabulary to help in classifying the fellow walkers. If you chance upon someone closely resembling you- belly wise, worry not; there is supposed to be seven individuals within handshaking DNA acquaintance.

 

The men folk come with bellies of different types and shapes. The first type is hemi - Pot belly or Bow belly – a   concave thrust of accumulated fat and comes in  two variants: a ‘tight’ air filled belly or the liquid filled ballooning belly.

 

The next type is hemi-Cylindrical belly. The hemi-cylindrical belly also comes in the above mentioned shapes. Another note worthy type is the Tile belly (or) ½ hemi-Cylindrical belly. In fact, this is the formation stage of a hemi-cylindrical belly. The last in the list (Sorry, I have run out of imagination) is the ½ Safety Tube belly and it comes only in pneumatically inflated condition.

 

Showing a little courage you select a place where a number of persons from the other gender will also be walking. This will add colour to the proceedings, even with the sword Damocles of dire consequences hanging over your head - if your better-half gets wind of your shenanigans. 

 

No vocabulary builder will ever entertain the temerity to categorize the burden of fat carried by the women folk, so vividly – for the fear of his dear life.

 

But we will gladly add a few sentences to enliven the theatre such as manly looking madams - in track suits and plugged in music, bubbly girls in boy’s wear and the middle aged ladies airing their views on their neighbours, bahus and the world at large- punching the air with hands, holding smart phones.

 

In this pleasant atmosphere, these foot soldiers carrying the threats of swollen hearts, blocked aortas, jumping blood pressure and climbing sugar levels, do the workouts briskly. This is a different kind of war, where the enemy from within – ‘bulge’ straining at the seams or the sugar hoarder, is being confronted. The noticeable difference is the fat sacs replacing army rations and ammunitions.

 

This battle field will not be strewn with claymores (landmines) but with dead twigs and crushed tetra packs.

 

Having an elaborate screen play on hand, now it is time for shooting the scenes:

 

Observe the man, with the air inflated Bow belly in action. As he   takes a stride with his right foot, the accumulated fat begins to shift to his left - in a tantalizing slow motion. At times, the bulge stands confused at midway. On the other hand the ‘balloonic’ bulge gyrates madly – left, right, up and down, reminding the famous belly dance, performed in the night clubs of Cairo.

 

A word of caution here – do not get distracted by the manly woman breezing past, casting a whiff of scent and music. Focus your eyes on the belly dance and not on the belle dancing by!

 

The walker, with the packed, hemi-Cylindrical belly (hCb), is a picture of perfect rigidity – no sideway movements of the belly. He only has to keep his neck pushed back, to counter the downward pull of the filled belly. If he has to wear a neck collar for spondylitis and walk – will it be cruel or comical?

 

The real comic relief is provided by the gentleman with water filled hCb. His whole body appears to move sideways as if dragged by the swing of the loose belly. The skin covering the bulge has also given up its own fight long ago. Even the non-walkers amongst us might have witnessed a similar sight, while waiting at the bus stop. The front face of a crowded State transport bus appears to veer away separately to the right, from the rest of the vehicle, as the bus comes towards the bus shelter.

 

The walker sporting a ½ Safety Tube belly gets only a passing attention as there is no scope for any visual entertainment of a moving belly. The least attention is reserved for the walker with a Tile belly- the anatomical location of this belly is in a tranquil zone and not prone to seismic tremors.

 

Whatever the type or shape, the belly takes the toll on the tailors. They encounter technical problems, in accommodating the bulge, and pray that the stitches – at the seams, button-holes and button et al hold against the war of attrition with the thrust and shift of the bulge.

 

The foot soldiers, in the Battle with Bulge, get to face the music in more than one sense – from the doctors, wife, friends and fellow walkers. In addition, they have to put up with the woes of technical problems of ‘accommodation’ and ‘net’ portability. 

 

It might be interesting to know – “In the war with bulge what happens at the end?”

 

The ‘wallet’ of the walker becomes leaner, the spring from the grass blades die young and the medical expenses become healthy, if the war against protruding fat is lost. A winner, in this battle may not get Military medals but might get ‘mentioned’ by the better-half, among friends, to enhance her reputation as a strict administrator – of medicines and exercise!

Better hurry up and update your vital statistics and take care of your bellies! Adieu! Till we meet again – to rub with shoulders.