032: LIVE YOUR WAY
“Were you born in a poor family?” asked David on the corporate dinner table. “No, my family was well to do”, I replied rudely. “Then, were you many brothers and sisters?” he asked jokingly. “NO, we are just 3 brothers,” I got conscious, I was well dressed in branded clothes, sporting the latest gadgets and a few ornaments. “Then, why do you eat so fast?” said David, who was a colleague and a very good friend of mine. Conversation happened when I was in the United States in my twenties. I thought he was pulling my leg just to tease me. After a few years, again on the lunch table, a female colleague asked “were you onsite to Somalia?” I calmly replied ”no”. She was furious “Then why are you eating like you are returning from famine.”
I was in the age when a woman’s perception about him matters to a man. I started taking it seriously. I started considering this a problem as I realised people were judging me on my eating speed.
In my childhood, whenever we used to visit family friends, my mother used to instruct us not to eat all the biscuits from the plate. We always ensured to leave one biscuit on the plate and eat everything else. Other than this, there wasn’t any formal training on eating. I learned all by myself or by looking at others. I learned fork and knife during college days. I mastered chopsticks during my visits to east asia. I was aware of local customs of eating on banana leaves in south India and on fig leaves in north India. I even practised the bhojan mantra sometimes, which I learned from some religious ashrams.
For some reason, I neither paid attention to speed nor did anyone tell me about it.
I started becoming conscious of myself to the extent that I got myself enrolled for various training programs in global etiquettes. I attended training on fine dining, wine tasting, power dressing and a few more areas. All thanks to my then employers for having such wonderful training programs in their learning and development. I learned from yoga gurus and spiritual books about mindful eating. They stressed upon what to eat and what not. I turned from non vegetarian to vegetarian to moderately vegan. Prevailing weight loss consciousness influenced me in a way that I started eating less times a day.
Sakshi bhav of meditation germinated in me in a way that I started watching myself from a distance. I observed that I was eating slowly only when I was eating consciously. I was eating fast whenever I was all by myself. I was eating even faster whenever I was too hungry.
I went and discussed this with a few of my friends, but they had no solution. I left hope.
I remained frustrated on the matter until I met an old friend. Finally, I took refuge in his advice, “be yourself and live your way.”
