Chapter 9: To be or not to be a Sparrow – XI

In this updated chapter, Mitali talks about frogs, rains, fitness regime, swimming, massage, and more, with sparkling wit. An exclusive for Different Truths.

Perhaps… 

You never start a piece with ‘perhaps’. 

However, perhaps, as the rain continued to fall, the frogs were serenading me again. They sang in an incessant musical outpouring, pausing occasionally and resting after their vocal exertions stretched out over the start of the New Year in Singapore. My guess was, they were related to the frogs in China who I fed lettuce boiled for ten minutes. Maybe the ensemble continued in its praise for an outstanding chef. No one has called me that as yet – but perhaps the frogs thought as such. It is good to find encouragement and admirers for my culinary adventures or misadventures. 

We do not understand frog language as I don’t understand Persian, Latin or Greek or many of the thousands of languages that colour the world with their splendour. During the rains, I also heard someone was doing research on the frog orchestra in Singapore and would pay if you sent him a recording! He wanted to list the variety of frog songs. But unfortunately, he did not think of interviewing the frogs to find out why they had set up a choir. Then, the frogs might have praised my cooking. 

In mundane terms, we were arrested with this gift from the clouds at the turn of 2021 — arrested at home by the weather. Whenever there was a pause in the loud sound of pattering rain and it slowed to almost a soundless drizzle, you could hear the parakeets chatter as they flitted from tree to tree near our home. Social beings. They also called out when there was an interval in the amphibian concert. This had been going on for a fortnight. It gave me time to pause and think back on amphibians in praise of who we have a number of nursery rhymes, including ‘jump, jump went the little green frog one day’. I specifically remember this one because my kids danced to it. Before that I taught it in a kindergarten — I tried that too long, long ago, before my kids — and found I loved it. Both the song and teaching the little ones. We had perfect communication. Then, I had sons who love frogs. Then, many also love Bollywood dances where I feel frogs might have been recruited at lesser costs to fulfil the need for dancers that jump like them. 

And as I reminisced about frogs and my association with them for more than half a century, I thought again of the lovely princess that kissed and turned the frog into a Prince. Aditya at the age of five had told me he thought that was a tragedy. Children as I have often repeated chance upon the truth more easily than adults. Remember, it was a child that declared the emperor had no new clothes on — in fact he had no clothes on at all. So, this was a truth that hit me — being a princess was not an easy task.  I did not fathom how tough it could be till I tried to become like a princess in Suzhou — slim and svelte — egged on by all my wonderful and well-meaning friends who thought exercise was the ultimate answer to all ills. 

Exercising formed an important part of expat preoccupations in China. Sweat pouring down their faces, dressed in tight exercising gear, my friends and neighbours ‘worked’ their way to health and, eventually, a good figure. Some jogged even in the rain, some did belly dancing, some did Zumba, some cultured yoga and Pilates, and a few swam – that’s non-sweaty. Some went to the gym and used exercise equipment, and some went to the spa and massaged to sweat and beat out their fat, respectively. Some said they felt healthy. Some said they felt beautiful. Some sprained their ankles and some broke their bones. But they all believed in exercising … sweating it out. 

Once a friend insisted, I add to my breathing exercises by walking briskly with her. I used to do Pranayama, a kind of yogic breathing that helped me manage my body and mind and took ten minutes at the most. She insisted I walk fast to keep more fit. We did it her way for a few days, and then it happened … we had to stop our jaunt completely because she developed a sprained ankle while doing Pilates! And the wretched ankle refused to heal properly despite physiotherapy and high-end Chinese medication. Pilates, said my good Italian friend, who was as passionate about exercising as me, is Hollywood’s gymnastics. 

Another friend, a Finn, told me Pilates is a gentle kind of yoga that does not force you to perform beyond your ability. This friend took me to the gym once and developed a cold after that. Luckily (for me), I could not continue my training. The only time I went with her, I told her I would go on the cycle and exercise on it up to the count of ten. She agreed. And then, when she started the contraption, she refused to close it for ten minutes. She said a count of ten was not long enough! 

Getting back to the story of Pilates, I always think of Pontius Pilate of Judaea¹ who ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. I wondered if he had anything to do with this form of exercise. When I surfed the Net, to my surprise, there was no reference to Pontius when I keyed in “Pilates” but a reference to this form of exercise named after its founder, Joseph Pilates², in the 1920s. It seems he developed it first for himself as he was a sickly child and then for POWs of the First World War³. Eventually dancers popularised it. Now, it is popular with all the fitness addicts of the world. I wonder if these people think of ancient Pilate when they do this form of exercise or the modern one or do they focus only on their shape and form? 

Well, to write in exercise terminology, when I jogged my brains (not raced them, as racing was taking them nowhere at that point), I recalled that the World Wars popularised existential philosophy with a tilt toward nihilism. This must have been popular among the surviving POWs and their families and friends. That is why maybe, when you surf the Net for Pilates, you come across jubilant Joseph’s name before Pontius’s. Religion and history have been flattened by fat-free abs and the necessity to maintain them. Probably, as I do not have any desire to lessen my adipose, I do have a sense of fleeting regret toward the choices made by the majority of mankind. In the quest for flat abs, are we losing out on the wonders of the universe? Are we forgetting that we have come this far by putting mind over matter? Are we losing out on the fun of living in our fear of becoming unhealthy, old, or diseased? 

There was a time in the past of my life as I mentioned in the beginning, when I pondered if tightening my abs with massage might be a good thing. One of my thirty-something friends lost her tummy fat and looked toned after a month or two of Chinese slimming massage. I thought maybe I could tone myself and become like a svelte princess with the same massage. So I asked my friend for the address. Equipped with a card, I went to the massage parlour. What I overlooked was that the card was entirely in the Mandarin script, and I could not read the language or verify the name of the shop. The shop was inside a housing compound. I went into this very pink place, showed them the card, and asked them in my bad Mandarin if they were the massage place indicated on the card. They said yes, they did give slimming massages. I enrolled. 

When I went for my first session, I was asked to talk to the boss, an extremely waxy, slim lady with long hair. If she dressed in white and floated, I might have taken her for a long-lost spirit. She brought out lotions and potions and tried to convince me that the stuff was good for me. She also wanted to inject me with some brown liquid and apply patches so that I could lose weight in two days. 

I was adamant. I refused.

I wanted only a massage; I insisted.

She agreed and told me I had to pay 3900 RMB. I paid. 

I was handed over to a twenty-year-old masseur. To my surprise, she put cups all over me and used a lotion that was supposed to increase my metabolic rate. She also tried to convince me that the medication was good for me. I wanted my money back. Lotions and potions are not my scenario. These things are often banned outside China. My masseur told me she suffered immense pain from the injected medicine and slimming patches … as if it were a virtue. 

She told me some amazing things. She said no one would love or marry her if she were not very slim; that breast-feeding was bad for the figure and women need to be slim. Men could be fat and ugly! She was from the same country as princess Mulan⁴ – a favourite Disney movie set in the early BCEs. But I guess every country has its anomalies. 

The boss of the massage parlour told me I should stop eating and drinking cold stuff to be as beautiful as her. Beautiful to her was synonymous to being ghostly thin! She confided she never ate watermelons or ice cream, or drank cold water. She told me beautiful women could not eat half the things in the world, and had to eat very, very small portions. They could bathe only twice a week. Other days they could soak their feet in hot water after eating dinner. She offered to give me a code of food and conduct to stay slim, and in her definition, beautiful! My dreams were close to being shattered. Perhaps, Aditya was right at the age of five – not liking princesses. Being slim, a svelte princess was not my cup of tea.  After two sessions I was also told that the programme would last for ten days only! I was shocked. I was amazed that my friends had signed up for three months for 3100 RMB. I argued to no avail. 

Driven to desperation, I decided to discuss this issue of the slimming massage with my friend and neighbour. She heard the whole story, listened to my descriptions, and then said the whole thing sounded strange and differed vastly from her experience. It sounded like another shop, as she received only massages for half an hour without lotions and potions. 

I went back the next day and checked with the masseur if there was another massage shop in the same compound. She replied in the affirmative. The mystery was solved. I wanted my money back. They refused. They asked me to come back later. I did. But they said they never paid back any client. No they would not pay me back. I paused, I thought. Then in a desperate attempt not to be cheated, I played my last card. I raved and shouted and threatened to wreck their shop. They figured out I was not good for their other clients, who had started to gather around,  and for their business. They hastened and returned my money. 

You may wonder, Why such extreme measures? Was I mentally afflicted? But getting money back from such small-time businesses like these was tough. It happened in India. It happened in Singapore. And it happened in China. 

In India, as I was employed in a newspaper, I remember I had very politely told a house agent that I would write an exposé in print if he tried games and, then, he complied to play by rules. In Singapore, when we were young and had no children, we were thinking of buying an apartment. With that intent, we contacted a house agent and went to see some houses with her. When we expressed a little interest in one of them, the agent and the landlord insisted we pay a non-refundable deposit of S$5000. They practically coerced the cheque from my husband.

We went back home that night and realised that we definitely did not want the house. The next morning, I called up the agent and told her we did not want the house. She told me the money was non-refundable. Then I started spinning my tale. I told her that I felt the presence of an evil spirit in that house, and the feng shui (traditional Chinese spatial laws) did not suit me as I felt sick after I got back. I also got bad news from home, I added. 

In Singapore spirits and ghosts are revered by a large part of the Taoist Buddhist population. There was a long silence at the other end. At last, the agent said, “You should think before you pay. I will talk to the landlord. You contact him in fifteen minutes and try to get the money back before he cashes the cheque. Take down his number.” I did not point out to her that she did not give us a chance. I called the landlord fifteen minutes later and repeated my story. He asked me to go to his house and pick up the non-refundable cheque immediately! Our non-refundable cheque was refunded! 

Long ago, before I tried massage, walking, or the gym, I tried to lose weight by swimming. I learnt the breaststroke and swimming at the age of twenty-four in Singapore. I started exercising by swimming for a few months. But on the way back from the pool to my flat, there was a bakery that sold vanilla cream buns. As I would be ravenous after the exercise, I had one every day. I really enjoyed the snack. At the end of a couple of months, I had not only become brown-haired and brown-skinned (as the pool water bleached my hair and the sun burnt my skin), but also had put on a few kilos. Then, because I had started teaching, I had to give up my romance with the pool. 

After two children, I floated and tried to discover new strokes while lying on my back in the water and paddled short distances in God knows what style. One day, as I floated in the pool and my sons swam, a neighbour in Suzhou informed me swimming healed her backache and got rid of her fat. Well, good for her. Then she suggested I try my footwork and handwork with a board like her. I baulked. I enjoyed the water and had no intention of making it my mission to conquer it. The water in the pool enabled me to frolic with my younger son. This was one of the things I enjoy purposelessly. 

I like my ability to have fun. 

Another neighbour offered to spend time checking why I could not swim longer distances anymore. I had told her that when I learnt swimming, I could do one and a half lap of the length of a full sized pool without stopping. It was not an idle boast. I did that when I walked back eating the tasty vanilla cream buns. Unfortunately, when my neighbour saw me in Suzhou,  I was lucky if I could do the width without a break. 

I was grateful to these ladies for their concern over my layers of flab and their persistence in sticking to me through thick and not thin. But I really wished they would have enjoyed me as I was. I still felt sixteen. One neighbour said I behaved like twelve. Well, either ways, I did not want to be in anybody else’s boots. 

I still felt young and beautiful most of the time. I still felt enthusiastic over things. I could laugh like a child and lose myself in the wonders of the universe. I believed in happy endings and was convinced that there was a solution to every problem. I liked people to be happy. And I would do much to generate happiness and hope. Recently, I have even adopted the silver blonde look. It started during the pandemic as the lockdown forced us to restrict ourselves to the house. I could not go to dye my hair. Then I so loved the colour – I have always fancied white – that I thought turning silver blonde was the best possible option for me. Steve Martin always made me laugh and I liked his hair colour. Now mine looks the same and I hope to make you all laugh! 

For me happiness comes from being with my family, cooking, eating what I cook, and jogging my mind and not my body. I think being over concerned about one’s weight and health leaves people so unhappy that they fall prey to different ailments. 

Once a teacher in my son’s school asked me how I stayed cheerful most of the time. I told her my formula: do exactly what you want and what you know to be right, and you will never be unhappy. Any amount of Pilates for flat abs and bodybuilding will not change this fact. I am so sure. 

After all, have you ever seen a frog worry about its weight or health or exercise? There are fat frogs and skinny frogs. Or a cow? Or a donkey? Or a fish? Well, I don’t know if fish and birds ever grow fat? But chickens and lambs do. Or, don’t they…? 

Birds don’t get fat because they have a high metabolic rate⁵. So, if how much you weigh becomes an obsession, would you rather be a bird than a human? Simon and Garfunkel sang⁶ of it in 1933 – “I’d rather be a sparrow…”. That is nearer to our times than Pilates!

References

¹ https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pontius-Pilate

² https://www.pilatesfoundation.com/pilates/the-history-of-pilates/

³ https://www.thepilateshut.co.uk/about-pilates/history-of-pilates

⁴ https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-history/real-history-mulan-who-what-looked-like-chinese-legend-disney-culture/

⁵ https://www.thespruce.com/can-birds-get-fat-386588

⁶ https://www.paulsimon.com/track/el-condor-pasa-if-i-could-2/

Photos by author and visual by Different Truths