When losing is gaining!

Health concerns crop up frequently like a pop up message or some sms campaign! Driven by an urge to reduce weight, I started looking for ways and means to achieve that. Got myself enrolled in a gym closer to my house and started doing workouts for almost an year. Though the fitness appeared to have improved, the flab around the waist did not budge a bit. This I could realize whenever my boss tauntingly comments at me about my belligerent tummy!

One day I visited a client who is quite warm and friendly. When I was with him one of his office boys came with a glass kettle in which something was brewing! The office boy stooped towards me and inquired if I would have coffee or tea. I told him to bring tea without milk.

After he left the room, I was curios to know what was brewing in the kettle. My friendly client told me that it was Green tea specially sourced from a famous mall in Dubai. He went on to explain the qualities of green tea and what it will do to improve health and reduce weight. When I doubted its effect, he reasoned out by saying that even intake of mineral water can increase weight and that the anti oxidant properties of green tea, and other special ingredients contained in the particular brand would assure weight reduction.

Even then, I couldn't just believe that simply drinking green tea would reduce weight, seeing the person himself who is quite obese. But he quickly dispelled my disbelief by saying that he was once 120kg before hooked on to green tea and now he has come down to 110kg!


He elaborated how to prepare the green tea using the special glass kettle in which first tea is placed inside the mantle and, steaming hot water is gently poured to the level of mantle, which should be kept for 10 minutes. Now the tea is ready to be decanted in a tea cup and taken without adding milk or sugar.

Finally, I asked him a frank question as to 'why he did not offer Green Tea in the first place, was it because it was expensive?'

The reply from him surprised me.

He said that many of his friends whom he offered, initially did not like it, as it would taste like boiled water using’ Cow dung'!

Well, don’t you think, one would not mind some bitter medicine for achieving Good Health?

Service your memory!

The karaoke system I had bought from Gitex trade in Dubai was giving trouble. The internal microphone had a puncture in the cord and went blank on and off whenever my daughter was singing.
The cordless microphones were also not working properly due to frequency-feed back problem. Everytime we tried to use, the microphones were giving a high frequency noise that even owls and bats would not tolerate!

My daughter began taunting me for buying a useless system. I started simmering and smoldering within. Angrily, traced the original purchase invoice from the file and dashed off to E Max, from whom I bought the system during the month of October at the E max stall at Gitex.

First we went to the service section where they collect the faulty items for warranty service. The guy at the counter advised us to meet a person at the Karaoke section who may be able to fix the problem and, in case he could not resolve the issue, then he would take it for repair service.

We met one Filipino guy who at first irked me with his remark that the warranty seal in one of the cordless microphones was broken, meaning that the warranty condition was affected. However, he started connecting it to one of the music systems. To my utter surprise, the cordless system behaved so obediently that he started testing it in different tones and made mocking noises! Then he explained to me patiently how to control the volume in the cordless system to avoid the frequency-feed back noises from arising.

We were so happy that the problem ended with such a simple solution that saved us from spending some extra money on buying internal microphones, as planned earlier, as an alternate solution.

Now the Filipino guy asked me if I can tell the name of the sales guy who sold the system at the Gitex. He also asked me if I tried to sing a song whilst buying. I replied that I sang a song but did not remember the sales guy and started to search for the name of salesman in the purchase bill. He asked me to read out the name from the left-hand top corner of the bill which read 'Marlo'

I thanked him for his service and asked his name when he flipped out his ID card which read "Marlo"!

I drove back home thinking that one needs to occasionally service the Memory too!