When it comes to exercise, i try and do my duty towards my body. But try suggesting a gym and the reaction is usually a negative shake of the head and an emphatic Uh-Uh. To think i could have been going to the gym all these years, with one of those delectable trainers and flaunting a hot bod to boot (sigh). However, we are where we are, and it is only a stroll in the outdoors that issues a sufficiently powerful call to the laziness in me. The writer within endorses the idea, too, for where else would i...
...regularly see the three generation ensembles of the kind one sees in family photos. Where grandmother, freshly minted mother and teeny weeny baby, all dressed up with no where to go except the park, come for a much awaited outing?
...know that little girls are out of their Barbies and into their Hannah Montanas?
...know what kids wear on their t-shirts? 'Been there, Wrecked that' continues as my favourite.
...see the peepul's leaves turn from albino white to deep green via rosy red.
...know that the latest in maid's fashionwear is, oddly, animal prints.
...hear the latest names kids are carrying around? Aryan..Shlok..Ansh..Arth...
...observe that when two siblings race to a mother and ask expectantly who came first, she always says 'both'.
...watch children swing with their eyes closed.
...admit that a father at a park's edge is always greeted more enthusiastically than a mother
...know that everyone talks to themselves; the children to imaginary friends, the old people to imaginary enemies and those inbetween to both. (albeit on their hands-frees.)
...discover that yesteryear beauties still have a glow lurking in their puffy faces and they search your face to know if you have seen it.
...know that old ladies only walk from one bench to the next.
...understand that one day i may be like them.
...see and hear the click-flash-whirr of the parent papparazzi, capturing their children expend those Kodak moments.
...realise that when both grandparents come to the park it is as much to celebrate their love by walking hand in hand, as to watch their grandchildren.
...note that sand, swing, slide, water bottle, snack box and their mother close-by is practically the whole world to a child.
...know it is Sunday when there is a surplus of daddies
...observe men chat in tight circles, their middle age comfortably settled around their bellies.
...see red-rimmed eyes spill in-law-tales into attentive ears.
...know it is time to go home unless i see the glow of cell-phones reflected against cheeks in the descending dusk.
...realise that people, even if they are strangers, not shiny-new gym equipment, mean the whole world to a jaded writer who rarely leaves her desk otherwise.
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