Sweet resolutions

It’s not just a sweet tooth that I have inherited due to bad genes. It starts with the tongue that cannot help drooling at the mention of a sweet in any form. It then progresses to the entire digestive system and finally the brain that cannot stop craving for sweets.

The last thing I needed was this extra-ordinary weakness for sweets. I cannot imagine a morning cuppa without sugar sweetening it; neither can I consume the afternoon chai without a sweetener. Medicines to plain milk – everything is palatable only because of the sweet flavour. The brain is a huge manipulator when it comes to consumption of sweets.
It dictates to me to consume without restraint, as when the deadly diabetes sets in, there would be no question of enjoying the sweet delicacies. So, I listen like an obedient slave and give in to the brain’s orders and simply gorge on anything sweet.

All those years growing up, I had only one stiff competition to eat away all the sweets available at home – my father. We both had the capability to sniff out sweets hidden in opaque boxes at the back of the kitchen and storeroom cupboards. The sole intention of hiding the sweets was to make them last longer. But, due to some unique combination of cockroach and rat genes mixed in ours, we could trace it where ever it was in the house and no sweet could remain hidden for long. There were fierce arguments between my father and me if there was just one sweet left in the box. Sadly for him, he developed the sugar-disease in his sixties. But due to some strange logic which I completely understand, he simply consumes the disease-controlling medicines and also the sweets
with the same gusto. After all, what kind of life is it if it is devoid of sweets?

In a strange twist of fate, the post-marriage relations that I have acquired —right from the spouse, to the in-laws to the children, have all got an anti-sweet digestive system. So, I have the pleasure of consuming all the sweets that are gifted to various people of the family.  Only that the pleasure is dimmed by not having any competition from anyone. Consuming sweets at the rate I am capable of in front of sweet-haters who watch with awe, disgust and concern about my gaining unsightly weight no longer seems as much fun. Still, it doesn’t stop me from devouring and relishing what I love most.

Every new-year resolution list of mine has always had this mandatory one – “Don’t gorge on sweets.” And by the end of January, I usually add a phrase “in front of others” or “on weekends” right after this resolution, so that there is a fair chance of achieving it by the end of the year. Seeing that all the sweet-related resolutions so far have not been achievable despite adding catchy additions, this year’s resolution on sweets went on the lines of “Exercise for 20 minutes on the days that sweets are consumed”. The aim was to enjoy sweetness as well as get benefits of exercise every single day. Since this too became difficult to achieve, the usual phrases got added by the end of January. And now, I am able to enjoy a sweet life every day and sweat it out in the gym for 20 minutes on weekends or on the odd day when I gorge in public. I think this is the first year that I would be able to achieve the sweet goal!