The Sweet things in life

 

 

 

 

 

 

The doctor was emphatic and with a withering look at me he said, “You are having a field day among sweets and sugar. The sugar levels are pole vaulting” This last comment irked me because I am neither a sportsman and nor I do pole vaulting.

 

But the fact of the matter is – my sugar levels are nowhere near the safe zone. I thanked him and parted with his consultation fee, which kept on changing like sugar levels-upwards!

 

The sugar problem could not be swept under a blanket as my wife was very much present at the consulting room, when the first pronouncement was made. The only freedom I probably would get was to go alone for the subsequent consultations (in her mind-follow ups).

 

Not to allow the doctors any familiarity, I started choosing to visit different consultation room, once in a while. This is the wisdom born out of my earlier experience where a doctor of many years’ friendship did a “ye tu Brutus” act, purely to settle scores with me on bygone era academic feuds.

 

I did not want to face a repeat performance by this consultant informing my wife that I had equal chances of ending with a dysfunctional kidneys or failing vision. I certainly wanted to prevent him from mentioning about a Mr. Laxmipathy who managed to pull back from the brink and give him the chance of rubbing iodized salt or pure sugar crystals in to my diabetic wounds. I love sweets at the stroke of midnight. My wife could not put an end to these forages. 

 

With the sugar level remaining adamant, my dear frightened wife and her nursing instinct came to the fore. Her ever ready reference sources - Google, Girija Ramanath, Sulakshana Desikan and Salem Chinnathayee let her down. She started my initial regime of diet and medication like a rudderless boat – till she could become more knowledgeable in keeping my sugar level in control.

 

Feelers were sent to her innumerable friends to gather all available information- folklore to forensic findings. When it is time, she usurps control over man and diets.

 

My sweet taste buds took the worst hit, even to the point of revolting with bile at the mere sight of her diabetic-friendly food tray. They were madly craving for a bonanza of sweeter things.

 

My book shelf underwent a major cabinet reshuffle - hard cover (or) paperback, the books invariably had a photograph of either a sugar crystal (or) a delicious and succulent rosagollah or a damaged retina.  She inducted a medicine chest also, in a no nonsense approach to remind me - it is time for this or that. She never lost an opportunity to parade her new found knowledge - the dire consequences of nephropathy or   retinopathy to terrify my taste buds.

 

The administered food was devoid of taste and the moment I get to mention it, the immediate reply will be ‘what tastes good, is bad for the health’. Mouthwatering sweets were slowly becoming a thing of the past. I had come to such a stage – to settle even for a bitter sweet, if such a thing was available, because one half of the word would still be sweet!

 

My mother-in-law, just then, dropped in for a month’s stay. After the death of her husband, she comes to stay with her only daughter whenever the going gets tough with her daughters-in-law. Her stays with us are a little longer than planned, the reason being – comfortable understanding among all of us. Later I found out the real reason for these extended stays - overbearing attitude of her daughters–in-law.

 

Her two sons were busy lecturing to students as professors and had no standing to do the same thing in the house. As a matter of practical convenience, she reserved the best of her attention to my family. Many a times, she used to cajole me to act as a man and behave like her erudite sons, albeit in a jocular vein, obliquely hinting at her daughter’s leash-on-hand attitude!

 

The 70+ could not put up with the constant bickering of my wife about my non-cooperation on matters relating my civil disobedience to the administered diet. She casually recited the family history of people, on her and her husband’s side who have lived dangerously close and yet pulled through with determination from the brink of diabetic oblivion. I sat, silently praising my mother in law for her rescuing act and at the same time diplomatically refraining from listing out the diabetes in my lineage.

 

She was injecting advice with out seeming to do so. “Stop nagging & give him the space for self introspection – you are only pushing him up against a wall; it is worse than his sweet in take” This advice took my wife by surprise. The old owl had cleverly made my wife to go ease a bit on the throttle and cleverly challenging me to rise to the occasion and bite the bait!

 

I mentally estimated all the sweet calories that have somehow taken the toll, inwardly cursing my insulin management system. As we sat for our meal, I valiantly fought with the sucrose dreams, nursing a sore throat singing the same tune of my dislike for medicines prescribed and the food items proscribed.

 

Then and there I decided to honour the 70+ Minlaw’s maxims. I resolved to revolt against myself and seek freedom from the cravings of taste buds and to take the fight to where my satanic taste buds were hiding. Yet, I wanted to time the battle and win it at the first attempt itself.

 

Unaware of my grand battle plan, my wife unfolded a wrong war map. She told her mother, for the umpteenth time, that I, a grown up man, am inching towards a certain disaster. That exploded a landmine in my mind.

 

Even amidst this 9/11 carnage, it prompted me to recollect the ‘adopted nursery rhyme’ I had penned, to tease a classmate - a milk vendor’s son and mortally afraid of cats & mouse.

 

Alley cat...  Alley cat …, where have you been?
To ask the milk man for a cup or two!
Why are you coming back, empty handed?
He let loose his bulldogs to chase me away!
Are you now planning to avenge that act?
Am sending a mouse to sneak in to his shoes!

A wry smile briefly must have played around the corners of my mouth. The perplexed look on the faces of the gathering told it all. On the spur of the moment I announced “No more …..”  The vehemence in my voice and the force of conviction it conveyed - made them all to look at me as if I am from Mars or Titan.

 

I paused for the dramatic effect and repeated my announcement in full – “No more sweets, ever!”

 

Taken aback, my wife silently withdrew to her sanctum sanctorum. She emerged after a few minutes, with a plate of ‘special meal’ for me alone. Her eyes conveyed “Yes. I understand”

 

How I envy their silent diplomacy! I happily submitted myself to this regime to make my life less miserable. Now, the mere mention of sweet makes my taste buds go into hiding.