Fighting diabetes

It could not have been just chance that my cab driver, a large burly Mr Yadav, hailing from my state of Uttar Pradesh, driving me from a hotel in South Mumbai to the airport in the wee hours of the morning got chatty and told me about his recent brush with doctors and disease. When a toe infection he had suffered a few months ago had refused to settle with home remedies, a reluctant visit to a doctor and a blood test had shown his fasting blood sugar to be around 300!

The word diabetes had shaken him: he was the sole bread earner not just for his wife and two small children who stayed with him in this city, but a large expanded family in his village home. He had heard that what often follows are heart and kidney problems.

It was around this time of our conversation that I noticed we were cruising down the Marine Drive where a large, well actually, very large, number of people were thronging the path bordering the sea and spilling on to the beaches.

The city of Paris, I had heard, never sleeps. But this was Mumbai at 6 AM? As though sensing my question, Yadav said, “These paths at these times used to be deserted 10 years ago. Now they are all here for fear of diabetes!”

I saw people of all ages and both sexes indulging in a variety of workouts: jogging or walking or stretching their bodies or allowing themselves to be dragged by their pet dogs, to a healthful start of another day. Their faces were, as is usual with Mumbaikars, intense in their singular pursuits rather than cheerful vibrant ones in Lucknow, but kudos to them, they were at it from dawn, trying to shed their excess baggage of fat, pacing up their hearts, improving their stamina and trying to ward of the dreaded diabetes.

Yadav went on to say, “Sir, I lost 10 kg over 3 months too, and brought my weight down from 110 to 100 Kg, by cutting down sweets and walking 5 km every day”.

To my unasked question of “What happened thereafter?” he replied, “I have stopped my exercise and gained back 3 kg”.

Does he regret it? He seemed somewhat torn between the conventional advice of “aaram (rest)” from elders in his village, and the “push yourself, run, and shed weight” that Mumbaikars practice and preach.As we neared the airport, he bowled me a final spinner, “What do you do, sir?”.

I am lazy by nature and getting up early for exercise, or for that matter, to catch morning flights, has always been my worst punishment.

As we parted at the airport, we both felt united by our roots and traits and secretly resolved to shelve off our traditional laziness and restart daily workouts in our own lives and cities, to keep the common enemy of diabetes at bay.

SOURCED A view of marathon held in Mumbai