Fruits are my best friend in India

It’s been two weeks now that I have been in Pune and finally I am feeling a little more settled than the first week. I have to admit that I still feel somewhat tired and maybe that has something to do with the heat and humidity. Even though I get about seven hours of sleep a night, I don’t feel 100% energetic especially in the afternoon. After lunch at Vinaya’s place I feel so tired that I often do nothing other than resting underneath the fan in her house. This has been going on for two weeks now. It doesn’t sound much of an exciting vacation right? But hey, that’s the nitty-gritty reality of living in India for you. Having only traveled during the monsoon, I know it’s best just to stay indoors in the afternoon and not to go outside when it’s raining. The only time I venture outdoors is to go off for a swim in the morning from 8:30-10:30am and then walking back and forth from my place to Vinaya’s. Even then, you’ll be surprised to see how tan I’ve become and that’s only due to two hours of exposure in the Indian sun--thankfully it hasn’t been direct sunlight otherwise I guess I would have been baked beyond recognition. 

Swimming has been really a life saver for me here in India. It’s the only form of exercise that I get, hence I’m very grateful to have the privilege of indulging in swimming this summer in this 50 meter pool which is close to where I live. It’s like a five minute on rickshaw and less than 1.3km away. I don’t like walking because the roads can be dangerous with all the traffic. Fortunately for me, it is only one of two pools in the entire city that is this big. 

Due to the hot, oily, and spicy food here in India, it’s pretty easy to put on a lot of weight and because India is such an overpopulated country it’s hard to get any kind of exercise whatsoever, and so the majority of Indian people are very fat. Men, women, and children. This unfortunately is the sad reality of India. The only ones who are skinny and fit are laborers, maids, etc. Everyone else is fat, fat, fat. The sad thing about it is that they know that it is not good for them, but because their country is so overpopulated they have a hard time changing their lifestyle. And it’s not that Indian people eat more than me..it’s actually the other way around. I can eat twice as much as someone who’s twice my size, but I burn off most of what I eat maybe from my high metabolism or from my swim. Whereas most Indian people don’t do enough physical exercise that’s why it’s  too easy for them to put on weight. 

I’ve also grown somewhat tired of eating Indian food; my palate is growing a little bored with it’s taste. I went out to eat with my friend Vaibhav and we had some pretty delicious veg food but it wasn’t something that I would crave for more. Whereas in Vietnam I wouln’t think twice about eating the same dish a second time (which was exactly what I did)--come to think about it, I would be very happy to have Vietnamese food in India. Vietnam has somewhat of the same humid tropical weather as in India, but due to a diet that is heavy in fresh greens, many dishes that are watery broth-based, and not so much emphasis on oily food, Vietnamese are leaner. I didn’t see too many fat people in Vietnam whereas here in India fat people are such a common sight that the feeling of disgusts and repugnance often comes up. Sigh. I am grateful for Indian philosophy and it’s rich culture, but almost everything about modern India just put me off and the problem again is due to overpopulation. India’s future does not look bright--rampant corruption and it’s sluggish mindset makes it hard for me to believe that it will ever change fast enough to tackle its myriad social problems. And the problems simply are staggering due to the crazy population growth. 

Fruits are my best friend here in India, especially bananas. On Wednesday I thought I came down with food-poisoining but luckily it was just eating some very spicy veg dish that I stupidly bought at a Bar-Restaurant for dinner. The restaurant looked clean enough from the outside with a lot of people but beware of any “bar” sign in India. It will most likely mean a place for men to smoke and booze indoors! I could hardly breathe inside and waited for my food outside. Vinaya’s nephew, Pushkar, told me later that food in bars are a lot spicier than regular food and so they must be avoided at all cost. That entire night, I slept so poorly that I thought I was done for. I felt like throwing up but resisted the temptation because I didn’t like the gag feeling. My stomach was literally burning and probably my intestines too. I was feverished that entire night and my whole body was aching. I woke up in the morning with bad diarrhea and had to use the bathroom twice. Thank god for the internet, I did some research on traveler’s diarrhea and found out that I needed to eat a ton of bananas and drink lots of fluids which was exactly what I did when I found out that it was probably not food poisoining but the heavy use of green chilis that they caked in the veg-meat balls that I ordered. I lost all my appetite that whole day and went to Vinaya’s house to rest and told her about my ordeal in the morning. Thank god, I regained some of my energy by 5pm and was strong enough to go to my yoga class at 7. The only thing that I missed that day was my morning swim. Only one day was ruined so far in this entire trip due to bad food--not bad right? 

Ever since that ordeal, I have been pretty cautious with any dish that has even a slight trace of spiciness in it or at least to counter the spice by eating one entire watermelon. Not sure whether it does me any good but my philosophy is that eating fruits here in India can’t hurt. However I stay away from apples and oranges, apples because of the heavy use of pesticides and oranges because of the prohibitive costs. I think they import their oranges from the US and so it gets costly. I mainly eat bananas, mangoes, figs, and just the last few days started eating one watermelon a day. Their melons are small and probably a quarter the size in the US and cheap. It only costs me about 30 to 40 rupees for one, which is about 80 cents. Since I’m a little too lazy to ask for a refrigerator for my apartment, I am somewhat forced to eat an entire melon everytime I cut one which is fine. Eating it solves all kinds of dehydration problem in India. However figs can’t be heavily indulged because I read that eating too much can cause tooth decay which is probably true since I felt some senstivity in my mouth after eating too many of them. Whereas mangoes I can easily it more than four a day and bananas, well, I eat so many of them that I won’t get offended if you called me a monkey. HAHAHA!! I love them..delicious and packed full of energy. I love eating them before my swim, during my swim, and sometimes after my swim.