Ode to the headstand

The author is talking about a birthday party

Sarla’s sixtieth birthday had the usual shenanigans. She wore sequins, a lot of them, looking, as a result, star spangled. She had a little more than usual to drink, though a lot less than one might have expected, given how it was such a special occasion, and that she’d recently become a first-time granny — to twins, at that. She cribbed that there were no prawns for dinner, that being her most favourite of all food in the world. Oh, and she did what she does often to liven up a party — she stood on her head, right there, in the middle of the living room, like someone else might pass around a tray of canapes. “I’ll do a headstand every birthday till I’m 80,” she said, taking a gulp of her rum and coke. Having seen her perform these calisthenics for the better part of three decades, none of us was in doubt about it. 

My wife, who hates any form of exercise that does not include shopping, was miffed. “Why does Sarla have to do this headstand thing every time?” she asked, gazing mournfully at a photograph of our upside-down friend that she’d pretended to click enthusiastically at the time. She now found its evidence distasteful. It’s not that my wife doesn’t work out, it’s just that life offers too many distractions. On most mornings, swathed in a muffler and jacket, walking shoes laced up, she’ll set off for a walk. But good intention is no excuse for the diversions that lurk in the neighbourhood.

There’s the wily Pammi Sharma, for instance, who’ll beguile her with an offer of tea. “Let me show you the original copy of a designer lehnga I bought for Una’s daughter’s wedding,” she’ll suggest. You can forgive my wife for being swayed a tiny bit, everyone’s been talking the whole week about what to wear for the sangeet, what for the reception. But Pammi’s isn’t the only trap along her route. There’s Kajri, who’ll point to her vegetable patch with offers to pluck enough spinach for a nice saag for lunch. Or Lily, who comes to the park not to walk but to gossip, and old Aunty Batra, who might say, “Why all this hurry-shurry, come sit in the sun, it’s too beautiful a day to waste on exercise.” 

Clutching her bundle of spinach in one hand, a cup of tea that she carried away from Pammi’s in the other, my wife can’t resist the enticement of other easy pickings along her route — drumsticks for the sambhar from a house whose owners are vacationing in Goa, sand for her new pottings, saplings pinched from pots lining the walls of the bungalows… Concealed in her pockets, weighed down by branches and stones for her ikebana settings, it would be unfair to ask her to complete her walk instead of carrying back her findings and news to share with family members before they depart for work.

But my wife isn’t one to take things lying down. “This Sarla,” she said, continuing to gaze at her photograph, “I’ll show her what I can do by the time I am 60, which” — she hastened to assure me — “is many years away.” Coaxed into sharing how she’d teach a lesson, or two, to her otherwise best friend, my wife promised me, “I’ll do a headstand and a handstand.” It’s time, I told my son later, to increase the premium on his mother’s medical insurance, even if only as a precaution against her increasing silliness.