A month ago, when I met this recently-retired friend of mine, he had the glow of ultimate contentment on his face and a genuine `life is good' attitude about him, as he was enthusiastically humming an old film song in his own chaotic tune. He was clearly transmitting signals of all being well with the world and God was in His heaven - to borrow a line from Browning. I was very impressed and somewhat nonplussed because this man was perennially subjugated to pulp by a domineering wife, which made any sign of even casual exuberance absolutely unwarranted. The lady nonchalantly dictated the terms on which their lives should run without ever including his feelings or requirements as necessary ingredients for the way forward. She always treated all those peripheral things including the husband himself as unavoidable appendages to her own vision of life. Whenever her bullying image crosses my mind, with her arms akimbo and a stern glare on her furrowed face, intent on cowing own all opposition, I immediately remind myself I should build a temple for my own dear wife soon! But, the man, with unbelievably mature and complete wisdom of what was good for him, had fully surrendered and followed the grand dame in all matters like Mary's own little lamb. That was how I found him, in a supremely happy frame of mind, a month ago.
But, when I chanced upon him a couple of days back, there seemed to be something amiss; the happy glow was conspicuously absent; the man was distraught, agitated to the point of getting aggressive in his behaviour, a trait which he was never guilty of earlier. I offered him a cup of his favourite coffee and he reacted with violent horror, as if I was forcing hemlock down his throat. He continued to flail and look around wildly as if a disagreeable ghost, which was haunting him, had nudged him hard as a reminder of its presence. After a few minutes of small talk and then some persistent cajoling, to my simple question as to why he was behaving strangely, he just said `health food'. Some time passed and he nervously emptied all his agony on my coffee table and in summary, his disquiet has been brought about by the recently acquired penchant of his wife's -- an unrelenting obsession with health food of all hues, not only for herself but for him too. What compounded the matter, he confessed, was the fact that his wife was influenced by myriad opinions on health good, with an abundance of cheap advice and was unable to make up her mind as to the most desired items for consumption.
The first simple problem my friend encountered was that he was unable to consume everything that was shoved in his direction as wholesome food or good for health. It all began with a glass of warm water with honey and lemon at first, to be taken on empty stomach, which he gladly gulped down, least realising what he was in for. After a week, the wife received another input about the goodness of chia seeds/flax seeds with water on empty stomach. Now, this mix cannot be taken technically on empty stomach, which already was sloshing with honey and lemon water. This logical point was dismissed rudely by the wife who insisted that this second glass of water also went in forthwith in close pursuit. Now came solids -- a mix of six almonds, six pepper corns and six raisins, soaked overnight in water, to be taken on the same empty stomach, which was already half full with liquids. Once all these are pushed down the plumbing system, there was sadly no space for any breakfast after that, was the primary complaint of my friend.
The lady had also seen sponsored ads about the goodness of eggs. She, like a lot of us, was confused about the acceptable number, one or two daily. In her wisdom, augmented immeasurably by sustained discussions in social media with her friends (one realised that there was a widespread experimentation with guinea pigs of husbands, by the group), she decided to err on the side of surplus and stuck with two. All protestations on his hind legs by my friend that eggs (he hated them, he confessed) can cause cholesterol excess, in which area he was already super-rich and was under medication, were swatted away disdainfully. With the appearance of eggs on the menu, all his favourite breakfast items like idli, dosa, upma, vada etc were peremptorily banished without notice or any other consideration, causing immense agony to the true South Indian that my friend is. To help him wash down the eggs, the wife sweetly made fresh orange juice, sugarless obviously, too sour to some extent. That being the third or sometimes fourth glass of liquid before 8.30 in the morning, the man was beginning to feel like a barrel of liquid.
To my friend's horror, rice was summarily reduced to twice a week during lunch and that too measured originally in spoons for quantity but grudgingly amended to small bowls after unprecendented domestic warfare broke out on a few occasions. The vacated space was given to soups and salads of all sorts, some meant for horses, my friend felt. Even the fact that the uncooked salad ended up in food-poisoning of some sort for both of them a couple of times did not deter the lady and she just rode roughshod in her path with extreme zest, having no regard for the whining of our man. Someone planted the idea in her mind that olive oil was better than home grown oils. This meant that on the odd occasion when something was shallow fried at home, the end product did not taste as good. When it was pointed out that she was spending twice the money on olive oil as against sesame oil, she cleverly justified that by saying they were saving enough by not consuming rice daily.
Coffee was now with skimmed milk and the man, an avid South Indian filter coffee afficianado, was getting increasingly rebellious by the day, just wanted to skin the woman. The lady's relentless pursuit of her new found objective meant dinner was oats porridge or something lifelessly similar (with skimmed milk, of course) and my friend saw no relief or end to his daily privations, after one long month. By then, he had not only lost some three kilos but also most of the will to live such an abysmal existence. The savage woman took all the money off him, to deprive him of any chance of eating any interesting food outside the home. That was how I found out how health food was aggravating him no end - when he, bleating like a hungry lamb, asked me for some money, just enough to buy vada and sambar plus coffee in a restaurant.
Why can't the women have all the health food they want and leave the menfolk alone? Logically everyone would be happier with that kind of arrangement, right? But then, health food or otherwise, the higher objective always seems to be to make the man fall in line with what is judged to be good for him!! Since he cannot think of such things himself. God help him, poor chap.
