I'm fat and happy!

Some years ago I was taking a regular Hindi class and one of my students wanted to learn how to say "I am fat, but I am happy"in Hindi.

Even today I think about that fat, chubby and enthusiastic boy who used that sentence and really meant it. How many can really say that? Does fat necessarily mean you are unhealthy? Do thin people never get any pains and heart attacks? Is it just a craze going around that people think you are fit and fine, if you are thin?

I was neither very thin nor very fat until I was 35 years of age. But then after 35 I bacame fat. And I had several people giving me advice to lose weight. I thought there was nothing wrong if I look my age. I don't want to look 20 when I am 40. Why shouldn't I be proud of my age, my body and my experience of life? I am not sure if I have diet fat or harmonal fat, whatever it is, I'm not afraid of it.

Think of your mothers and grand mothers. They were all fat in their 40s and 50s. They all turned thin after 55. It is the way God has created us. Both men and women have round bellies after a certain age. Why do you want to fight nature?

Think of the old Hindi-Punjabi movies where fat was not bad. A fat girl or a boy were described as "khate-peete ghar ke log." (person who belonged to a rich and prosperous family, who never ran out of food.) Well nobody thinks like that any more.

Fat or no fat, what really matters is that you are healthy, and don't live on pills. If you visit your doctor only once in an year and that too not for a major ailment, then you have nothing to worry about. If people think you are fat, its their problem. Be happy guys, meditate, walk if you can't do yoga or gym, do all that you want to do, enjoy food and also life. We live only once.