Let’s get one thing straight. This guide is for the greedy, rich, well-fed folks only; the kind that complain after eating a huge meal that they have eaten too much. It is not for the poor for whom food is for subsistence and, if possible, for taste. The poor live by the maxim “Survival precedes health”. If you die of hunger, the question of health does not arise.
If it is any solace to the starving masses, more people die of overeating than under-eating in the United States of America.
So now that we have got the troublesome poor out of the way, we are ready to explore healthy living.
The first rule of healthy living is to avoid desi food like plague, and particularly, huge amounts of meat. It is the fastest route to your grave. This in turn is the revenge of all the goats, cows and chicken you ate up.
I had a carnivorous friend from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa who would ask his wife “What is for dinner tonight?” If the wife informed him that there was salad, daal and three different types of vegetables, he would respond, irritably, “That is fine, but what is for eating?”
If you stay too healthy, you would live for a long time and a long life can never be a healthy life. Leave this world with all your body parts still working reasonably well
Second cardinal rule: The healthiest way to eat is to starve. Most of us eat like pigs. Eat less and stay healthy. Granted that if you eat a little less you can become irritable, but remember that we burn more calories in the irritable state.
If you think you eat too much, you may be suffering from a disease called Jul Baqar. In popular folklore, it is said that the stomach of a man afflicted by Jul Baqar is dug up by a blind digger. This disease is exclusively sub-continental and is not known in the annals of Western medicine. The sufferer, if one may call him that, can eat a huge amount of food without putting on any weight. However, the effort the body requires for digesting that amount of food results in early and catastrophic organ failure.
Third rule: Sleep a lot. This may sound counterintuitive since we burn fewer calories during sleep. But some of the brightest ideas are counterintuitive. So if you wake up at 11 am, and have a nice light breakfast it will double up as lunch. So you save burdening your body from one full meal. Not to mention that it means less time for cooking, lower expenditure on food and even a better world as you will have less time to go out in your car and pollute the world, create traffic jams, consume electricity, fight and complain, and watch TV talk shows. Your spouse will be happier as he or she will have to deal with you for less time. Always keep in mind that the world is a better place without your getting involved in it.
The author's advice is to face potential health issues in the spirit of Tipu Sultan's fearless stand
The fourth rule of a healthy life is never to go out for a walk. The air you breathe in most cities of Pakistan is a mixture of some lethal toxins that can kill an ox. Walking on the sidewalks is particularly dangerous as you can fall into a manhole. You will realise that there is a reason for calling such a cavity in the ground a manhole: it is waiting to devour a man. Walking in the parks for the well healed (known in general as aunty parks) is also not conducive to health, as you can feel extremely depressed going round and round in a circle. The sight in the park of ungainly men with overflowing bellies and huge bulks of aunties wrapped in black, all trudging along in a gait fit for elephants is an irrefutable proof that walking does not work.
It is far healthier is to stay indoors and switch on the air conditioner. A few rounds of the bedroom or some trips to the washroom will suffice as exercise.
Fifth: Avoid visiting a doctor unless you are in serious pain, like feeling that there is an elephant sitting on your chest after walking for five yards or throwing up twenty times in a day. Follow the same maxim for consulting a doctor as you do for going to a car mechanic, i.e., if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Now here is the final and the most important rule of healthy living: stay healthy but not too healthy. If you stay too healthy, you would live for a long time and a long life can never be a healthy life. Leave this world with all your body parts still working reasonably well. This is akin to Younis Khan retiring while he is still scoring runs. And there is no point in worrying about your kidney if you have a junk of a heart. A chain is strong only as much as its strongest link. Just take care of whichever organ is in the worst shape at any point in time.
Remember: the human body is not designed to function well after you cross 60. Most likely you will start suffering from one, some or all of the ailments known to mankind. The infamous diabetes, popularly known as “sugar”, arteries choked like Karachi roads, a kidney that makes the washroom the most used space in your house, foggy memory, blurred eyesight, and dodgy hearing – all come with aging. Avoid aging by kicking the proverbial can while the going is good. If a few selected vices help towards this goal, indulge in them without fear.
After in the words of our great hero Tipu Sultan, “It is better to live like a lion for a day than to live like a jackal for hundred years.”
