Sunday, January 16, 2005

The thick and thin of it...

I am thin. You just won't believe how extremely, mind-bogglingly thin I am. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the drug store, but that's just peanuts to space. Err... sorry about that, got carried away by Hitchhiker's... he he he...

But the fact remains, I am very thin. And tall, not very, but some might be inclined to think so. For most scientific purposes, I can be safely assumed to be strictly a one-dimensional object without loss of generality. I am what you would call a bag of bones, no waste of flesh, just the bare minimum to articulate those bones and just enough blood (well, caffiene now) to keep those joints lubricated. In my younger days, this caused much consternation amongst my relatives who, whenever they met me, exclaimed, "Oh my! You have lost weight!" Considering the facts that,
1. I meet them usually once a year,
2. I have grown taller by a couple of inches during that interval,
3. Did not change appreciably in the horizontal directions. Logically, scientifically and common sensically, I could only have gained weight. Hearing them gasp thus, I would hasten to check if I have lost any of my limbs or more importantly my jeans, which contributes to a considerable percentage of my total weight. It was not until many years later that I realized that they never really meant anything by their enquiries and that "Oh my! You have lost weight!" is just their way of making conversation, pretty much like they talk about weather in America. Of course, one does not really talk about weather in India, because as Mark Twain so aptly remarked, In India, "cold weather" is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy.

A lot has changed since I was 11 years old. For one, I have developed an insolent tongue which retorts mercilessly to any inquiries regarding matters of my weight or lack of it. Also, unlike my aunts, the present generation is more obsessed with perfectly chiselled biceps for men and slim figures for the women. Of course, during their trip from potbellyville to flat-abs city, they have to invariably drive through diet valley. While they are cutting down on fat, carbs etc. trying desperately to shave off ounces off their protruding bellies, I down a medium sized pizza without gaining a millimetre around my waist to show for it.

Long have I wondered why I never gained weight, but could never come up with a satisfactory explanation. Well, until now. And the answer is: wormholes. No, not worms in my intestines and holes in my stomach. While that might probably be the medical reason, we don't want you to get the same reaction reading this blog, that you would get when you sit down in front of your television with a plate of your favourite food and see three guys trying to outdo each other in eating raw buffalo testicles in Fear Factor.

Voice one in my head: Did you say raw?
Voice two in my head: Yeah.
Voice one in my head: What about botulism, Ecoli?
Voice two in my head: Tell me about it! All this for $50,000!
You: That is what is concerning you? ::perplexed::

So coming back to the issue at hand, I think I am thin because of wormholes - the one that you hear about in sci-fi novels/serials. The wormhole in question opens in my hepatic portal vein and opens out in the liver of an alien in some wierd galaxy, even an alternate parallel universe, where the present day trend is to be as fat as possible. So here I am eating everything edible in sight without gaining an ounce and somewhere out there is an alien who is getting fat without eating anything at all, much to the envy of his alien friends.

The curious amongst you are thinking, why doesn't what the alien eats trickle down to my body? Ummm... I am not sure. The wormhole is strictly one way probably? Hmmm... all this theorizing seems to have made that alien hungry. Have a nice day, while I go eat some payasam. Bon appetite.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Of course wormholes are one-way. Samatha Carter herself proved that, if memory serves me correctly. It also takes an insane amount of energy to open a wormhole to another galaxy, as we learned in the first episode of Stargate Atlantis (and an early episode of Stargate SG-1 in which Jack possessed the knowledge of the Ancients), so it's more likely that your wormhole opens only at another planet in our galaxy.

--kate

Maccanena said...

Hey, where do I sign up for one of those aliens to suck up all my fat and sugar intake? After all I ate today, they should be very happy with such a food donor as me ;)