Killer abs & the case of my missing eyebrows

It's 10 am.

I’m sitting on my bathroom floor.

My abs are killing me.

Allow me to explain.

I grew up with a horrible pair of eyebrows. They were the thickest set of Groucho

Marx brows anyone had ever seen. You could spot them from a mile away.

Imagine a cherub with broad black band running across its forehead. I'm not

saying I looked like a cherub. But imagine one anyway.

As I got older I made peace with my brows. My dark shroud of misery became

less and less inconvenient. In fact, I'd even come to rely on them as a constant in

a world where things changed so rapidly. And then it got to a point, a few years

ago, when my eyebrows evolved and were suddenly in vogue. I shit you not.

Here's what happened.

Somewhere in the Wild West, a movie was made. It was called Paper Towns. It

was awful. Cara Delavigne (popular model and now actor made a substandard

debut). Paper Towns was about a girl who escaped her current reality by running

away to towns that existed on the map but not in the real world. Long story long,

it was a big budget film about white privilege and it tanked horribly at the box

office. Nevertheless, Cara and her bushy eyebrows were launched into a more

popular arena. Suddenly it was all anyone talked about. It's not like bushy

eyebrows hadn't been a thing before that, but this time... it was huge. (That's

what she said) And by ‘she’, I mean any woman who had ever worked at any

fashion magazine. Ever.

It wasn't life-changing or anything but by the winter of 2015, I too decided to

finally embrace my fully fucked up brows. And it was awesome. Little odd, seeing

as how when you change your perspective you could potentially change your life.

But awesome still.

Then a few months ago, the unthinkable happened. I was in Bombay for a shoot

when I noticed that a huge chunk of hair had gone missing from the inner corner

of my right brow. A few weeks later, more absences occurred. Naturally, the rest

of my hair (what was left of it) stood up at wit’s ends.

Now I think I'm a reasonably calm person but I'll tell you this. My reaction to my

missing eyebrows was to freak the fuck out.

Many hours of panicked research and a visit to the good doctor revealed that I

had a rare condition called Telogen Effluvium. (Rare, in that it's unlikely to

happen to you until it happens to you.)

"It's triggered by stress", she says.

"Ummm... the stress of losing one's eyebrows perhaps?" I volunteer. She looks up

unamused and without another word goes back to writing something

incomprehensible on her notepad. As doctors often do.

We did a few tests and eliminated thyroid, any kind of hormonal imbalance and

bad karma as possible causes. The next day I checked my horoscope (you can

never be too careful about these things) and eliminated Mercury Retrograde too.

I spoke to my mother who said, 'Time pe sote nahi ho. Yeh toh hoga hi.'

Of course, Ma! Why didn't I think of that? Now, please!

By August 2017 this is how matters stood. My eyebrows were falling little by little.

We didn't know why. The doctor had said they would come back... eventually (not

very reassuring but I'll take it). And that in her opinion all I could really do, was

go home, and relax.

Relax! Can you believe that? Her professional... nay medical advice to me was

that I go home and calm down! Now I'm not an expert, but I'll tell you this. You

will never hear a doctor tell someone with Gonorrhea or Hepatitis that they go

home and you know... relax.

Also am I the only one who thinks that 'relax' is code for jerking off? And how

does one relax on command? Do tell, Doctor.

"There isn't much else I can do to help you.”

That was the sound of science giving up on me. On my way home I thought

about how we had figured out a way to put a man on the moon but we were

unable to solve the case of my missing eyebrows. On the metro, I enviously stared

at other people's un-Telogen-Effluvium-ed brows.

The thing is, (and this is a fact, you can Google it) that most people have shitty

eyebrows. They're scarce, often over-plucked. You see Delhi women (women in

general?) have somehow gotten it into their heads that if you pluck ‘em enough

maybe they will eventually submit and start to look okay. Ladies, if it ain't broke,

don't fix it! Period.

I brought my meltdown home and tried to relax. Now I have a peculiar habit. And

this has been a constant through most of the tiny insignificant endeavours of my

life. And that is, when things go south in one aspect of my life, I start fixing

everything else.

I needed a distraction. A diversionary tactic, if you will. Something tangible.

Something somewhat impractical but not too far out of reach. Enter; the

mindless notion of killer abs. The idea that I must eventually get cracking on that

six pack has been collecting dust for over two years now. Not anymore. I was

going to Rocky Balboa the crap out of my abs.

That was three days ago.

4 hours of cardio, 1200 crunches, 15 minutes of planking and many many leg

raises later I found myself in excruciating pain on the bathroom floor (incapable

of doing another sit up). It turns out I'd overcooked the abs and as a result was

experiencing a spasm of the lower abdominal muscles that had rendered me

potentially useless for the rest of the day.

I would have gone to the doctor, but I was afraid she'd just ask me to go home

and well... relax.

And so instead I stayed on the bathroom floor. Where I sat clutching my 6 pack in

the making, unable to move, typing on my phone, explaining to anybody who

would listen why I was so intent on acquiring that damned thing anyway.

And right when I’m starting to think that the distraction is working my flat-mate

walks in, takes one look at me and says....

"Dude, what's going on with your eyebrows?!"