Chocolate Power

Chocolates have been giving me power since 26 years now. Let’s not get carried away by the number here, let’s focus on the topic “Power Chocolate”. Remember the “Milky Bar, Give me the Power” ad? Being the naive kid I was, I sincerely thought that a Milky Bar could make us all fly in space. Since that day till today I’ve been eating chocolates everyday hoping to be able to spin like Shaktiman (Indian Superhero). Too bad, “amul milk” ads did not leave that kind of impact on me. Though I can still sing along with that jingle.

My day begins with a chocolate and ends with one. If I wasn’t under close supervision of my mother (before marriage) and now my husband (after marriage), I would probably sleep with a chocolate in my mouth. Now I sleep with the taste of Himalaya’s Neem toothpaste.

If you know me or have been a regular follower of my blog (kudos to you), you would also know that I am a hyper active person. My body seems to lack a “stop” button. I am as energetic at the end of the day as I am at the beginning.

We Jamwals are known for our boundless energy, liveliness and the oomph as we are always high on sugar.

At work, when I run out of my daily dose of chocolate by noon, I set out for a hunt, sniffing and tracing sweets. Just so I don’t bother my colleagues in the middle of something important, they have started keeping aside something sweet for me, in a bowl outside their offices. I almost feel like one of those corrupt police officers from old bollywood movies, who would torture poor villagers to pay him weekly protection money. The failure to do so would have consequences. In my case, they will have to listen to my whining.

Only the other day, when our office was celebrating 2 birthdays with 3 different cakes at once, everybody was being asked which cake would they want to try, and when it came to me, I was asked “which one would you like to START with Deepali?” (With emphasis on “Start”)

“How can you be so sure I will try all 3 of them?” I spoke in my defense

“Oh! I am sorry, which one would you want then?”

“I’ll Start with a small piece of all 3” ;)

There I go. I can’t even resist my urge to prove a point in my defense.

Well, I am little to be blamed here. I have this in my blood. My grandmother tells us that my father would carry plain sugar in his pant pockets to school, just in case he didn’t get anything else sweet to eat.

So it runs in my family. All of us are sweetoholics. Except for that one day, when I made this sweet dish, (Bread halwa) which was mind numbingly sweet, and none of my family members could eat more than a bite of it. In-fact, my sister even swore, she would never eat anything sweet I ever make in my life. And I ate the whole dish single handedly. That day I officially qualified to be the sweet teeth (not just tooth) of the family. What an honor that was J

But I do realize the negative impact of being a sweetoholic. Spending half my life on a dentist’s chair has costed me a fortune apart from half my life J . So I decided to challenge myself to go off sweets for as long as I can. Day 1 was difficult. I couldn’t concentrate at work. And once I couldn’t work, I kept thinking of chocolate. As we all know, an idle mind is a chocolate factory. That day, all my colleagues’ chocolate bowls were intact. They started to worry, but I assured it was a voluntary act and I am not under any influence.

Chocolate addiction is worse than Cocaine addiction (not that I have experienced latter). At least they have rehabs and support groups for cocaine addiction. On the other hand, people just point and laugh at you when you tell them you have a chocolate addiction. It’s not considered as horrifying as cocaine for some reason.

The day I decided to go off sweets, we had a birthday in office, followed by valentine’s day, followed by another B’day. Everybody knew what that meant, “Deepali will give in”.

BUT I DIDN’T

I didn’t even go close to the cakes, even though I could smell them from miles apart, or maybe I had a small slice when no one was watching, but that doesn’t count since no one was watching.

I lasted for 3 days and I am very proud of myself, but I never plan to go off sweets again.

I will brush 5 times a day, work out twice as much, but will not give in my source of power. SWEETS!