OWR- Operation Weight Reduction Author: Dr. K. S. Kang

 

OWR- Operation Weight Reduction

Author: Dr. K. S.Kang

A new change suddenly came in life of Puneet, who was leading a peaceful retired life with his wife. This sudden change came after their children left for their job stations leaving Puneet and his wife in the house and his dominating wife, as most of the wives are dominating at least over their husbands, one fine morning announced the beginning of Weight Reduction Campaign as Puneet was gobbling the last crumbs of his breakfast. His wife Sara declared that from tomorrow they will skip breakfast and both of them will only take an apple or equivalent and a glass of milk in breakfast. Puneet, like a civilised man of the society had no option but to accept her decree. She opted for this campaign as she felt that they were getting overweight due to having three square meals a day and that too full of carbohydrates, grease and sugar. So she wanted to start the campaign by skipping the breakfast and to take more steps if needed to ensure the success of her campaign.

After a couple of days Puneet was finding the hunger intensely unbearable especially after three hours of their meagre breakfast as there were still two hours to go before the lunch. This became more unbearable when Puneet had to go to market one day as he entered a street the aroma of piping hot, crispy and spicy edibles like pakoras, samosas and kachoris allured him like a magnet and despite his vow he could not restrain himself to content his taste buds and germs of the belly who seemed to be crying for food after getting stimulated by the sweet alluring smell of the edibles the shop sold. As he came out of the shop after gobbling a couple of kachoris and as he was wiping his face to remove all the evidence of his crime he nearly collided with a fast coming motorcycle. The close save filled Puneet with the feeling of remorse and guilt as he felt that he had to face this for violating his loyalty towards the OWR Campaign.

After a few more days he had to go on some errand to another street of the town that contained one of the famous bakery shop of the town. As he stepped into the street he was greeted with the colourful, fluffy, creamy, aromatic bakery products like jam rolls, cream rolls, pasties and cream biscuits. Again as soon as saw these objects in the shelf of the bakery shop he could not stop himself from taking a jam roll and cream roll due to its irresistible flavour and sweet alluring aroma. As he was coming out of the shop he nearly slipped on a used paper plate thrown on the floor by some careless customer. It appeared to Puneet that it was again a sign of punishment that would have fractured or sprained his feet for the crime of being disloyal to the Weight Reduction Campaign.

Now mostly it had become his regular habit to visit the market on one or the other pretext of some errand and straight away go to a Sweets Shop or Bakery to satisfy the growing intensity of hunger in his stomach and content his taste buds and protesting germs of his belly, He used to get restless whenever he could not find any pretext to leave the house and go to market. Though he was careful enough to destroy every evidence of his crime but at the close of the month Sara decided to monitor the success of their campaign and took their weight on a weighing position. To his horror and dismay Puneet found that his weight has increased by half a kilo while Sara’s weight has come down by a kilo nearly, She looked enquiringly at him and Puneet gave a very fragile excuse that their campaign was like the effect of homeopathic medicine, at least for him, as homeopathic medicine increases malady before curing it. So Puneet assured his wife though his weight may have increased in the first month of their campaign but ultimately it will be effective and bring down his weight as well.

Dementia of Dreams Author: Dr. K. S. Kang

 

Dementia of Dreams

Author: Dr. K. S. Kang

Dementia is a considerably serious state caused by malfunctioning or injury of brain. It affects the ability to think and remember the things and recollect them after a given time period correctly and clearly. Lately I discerned that I too was forgetting the dreams of my sleep the moment I leave my bed in the morning very much like the celebrated nineteenth century romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This malady became the cause of the famous poem Kubla Khan as Coleridge himself had declared it as to be a fragment or unfinished poem. As Coleridge suffered from arthritis, so doctor advised him to take some opium to get relief from the pain so as to get some sleep during the night. This habit of taking opium affected his memory and he was unable to recollect his dreams. Coleridge was confident that day that he could have composed a long poem of about thousand lines on the dream that he had during his sleep at night. After waking up he started writing about his dream but hardly he had written hundred lines that somebody came to meet him that detained him with the guest for about three quarters of an hour. After the guest departed Coleridge returned back to finish his task of translating his dream into words. But he was surprised to find that the dream has simply evaporated from his mind just like fumes of fire or cloud. However hard he tried to recollect his dream but all his efforts to recollect it were futile. And that reduced the Kubla Khan to be a fragment or unfinished poem. As the poet himself had declared this poem to be a fragment so that became a chief USP to make it popular leaving a number of critics guessing what Coleridge would have written in this poem if he had remembered the entire dream or if the guest would not have disturbed him.

Lately I have also discerned that I feel in the sleep that my dreams could become an apt subject matter for a memoir, essay or a short story. But to my dismay I find that I am unable to recollect anything about the dream clearly the moment I leave my bed in the morning. Medicos generally hold this opinion that dementia is one of the feature of the old age. As men advances in life he starts forgetting about his immediate past but remembers everything about his childhood activities that kept him busy in his house in a town or village where he had spent his childhood.