The Rajagiri Blog
Home >>Blog
By: Dr. G.Rangarajan
Enduring Breakfast Shows
“Mmm, your sugar level isn’t satisfactory, especially the post prandial sugar level; breakfast is important, don’t skip it, advised my doctor looking at my lab reports. So I try to eat my breakfast making it as endearing as possible, watching breakfast shows on my 65 inch 3D LCD TV. This is a habit which I picked up after my mother sternly rebuked me when I was younger, for reading books and comics while eating. She is of the view that while eating, you must have focus on just the food. Anyway I couldn’t just focus on food alone and the compromise was switching on the television.
But let me tell you, it has never always been a truly endearing experience. The remote gets busier as I have to keep surfing to avoid certain visuals which do not go along with the food that I have in front of me. It is like a gamble! I will have a mouthful of some nice idlis and sambar when an uninvited visual appears offering the best remedy for stained closets and commodes. Someone takes you to someone else’s toilet, and there he is with a housewife explaining the ‘before’ and ‘after’ effect of the product. The magnified image of the gaping yawn of the closet just does not vanish even if I look away. And automatically an ‘after effect’ emerges spoiling my appetite. I quickly change the channel and try to look at another program, and now it is a romantic song. But the song ends abruptly and a commercial pops up recommending the ideal sanitary napkin. The comparison with similar products takes me to another nauseating realm and this time I expect my remote to guide me to something appetizing to neutralize the bitterness. But then the remote declares that the possibility is remote, and I am compelled to stare at someone travelling in a bus releasing a strong stench from his armpit. The beautiful girl reacts so well that I am forced to conjure up the situation, seriously affecting my breakfast helping. My problem is my capacity to empathize. Well, I realized that I have to have my breakfast faster than the normal pace as time was running out. I could have chosen to shut off the TV, but somehow the temptation to listen to another song prevailed over me. And nibbling the hot idlis I was hearing Shreya Goshal’s latest.
My wife pops in with another casserole of steaming idlis. She looks at me quizzically as if asking, ‘well you have not eaten even the first two idlis I served you…what happened?’ And before I could explain, she bursts out, “I know you will eat only what is prepared by your mother! I am going to stop serving you breakfast!”
I try to be calm and grab the hot idlis soaking them in sambar and tell her “Oh no! It isn’t so. Look! I am going to finish them all”. And my mouth is full...but to my chagrin, a quick glance at the TV screen draws me to a dental patient exposing the cavities and the doctor struggling to ward off halitosis. The visual makes me conjure up the strong whiff of bad breath, the advertised toothpaste making no impact on me. I am left with no choice but to abandon my breakfast. I rush to the toilet and puke, quietly taking all the brunt and the next live visual I see is my wife’s puffed up cheek which looked like a swollen battoora! After all, ‘it serves me right!’
