We all love baby skin. It is so soft, smooth and plump - complete with wobbling cheeks. If only we could retain that skin all our lives, we would have found the fountain of youth. Alas, those wishes are but unrequited longings of the impossible kind. Still, we can do our bit to keep whatever vestiges of health and beauty alive for as long as we live and hope on. Some day, manufacturers of those tiny, ridiculously expensive containers selling half-kept promises will actually be able to package clear baby softness... Till then we will have to make do with blackheads, pimples, wrinkles, cleansers, toners, moisturizers and sunscreens.
As a child I lived outdoors when I wasn't confined to the four walls of a classroom in school. My free hours would find me swinging on 'my' branch of a guava tree in our compound, eating the rock hard raw fruit, waiting for people to finish homework and come out to play. I could not understand people staying indoors during the day. There was so much to do outdoors. Those days we were completely ignorant of the term 'sun screen'. Skin care meant washing our faces with gram powder and using milk cream at night before going to bed. A little Vaseline kept our lips from getting too dry. I had good skin. It was golden brown, with a healthy sheen that came from loads of running around, sitting on my branch and playing catch till darkness fell. All the food I ate got digested and I was reed thin.
Then I grew up. The tree lost its appeal. Outdoor games were meant for 'kids'. Books, music and solitude replaced running around. Food and writing became obsessions. I became fat. Friends started pinching my cheeks - more out of compulsion than an acknowledgement of my cuteness. It was embarrassing. I had to lose weight, and preferred denying my body of wholesome healthy food to sweating it out playing 'catch' with juvenile siblings and cousins. Nothing anybody said would make me eat more than half an idle and gulp a glass of milk for breakfast. Lunch was a meager bowl of curd, a spoon full of rice, another of vegetables, salad and some Archer. Dinner was mostly skipped.
Naturally my skin took on a dull pallor. The golden glow it had during my running around days had vanished. One of my friends who met me after a long gap commented, "Hey, you look like an old woman in a young girl's body. What's wrong with your face?!" it hit me like nothing else had in the past. I was all of 19. I wanted my glow back!! I understood the basics of nutrition, knew exercise was good for the body, but could not comprehend what kind of exercise I should do. Climbing trees was out. So I went in to the nearest yoga school, and started my tryst with toning up. I was taught some of the basic Azana's to attune my body to a new experience which my guru hoped would become a habit. Slowly, she initiated me into Surya Namesake and taught me a procedure called Lags Shank Prickling, which cleanses the alimentary system of all toxins. Weeks later, I could feel my body toning up, and my skin was getting to its naturally glowing self - thank god!
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