Kishore Singh: It's not fat, it's middle age

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As I write this, I'm feeling extremely virtuous "" not because I've had salad for lunch (which I should have, but haven't), but because my wife has conceded an important hurdle in life. We have officially crossed (after almost two decades by my reckoning) into middle age. As a result, we will not be attending the rock back awards night to which I had been so looking forward to.

And all on account of my wife's weight. "Do you think," she had asked, biting into her third guava in as many minutes, "I have put on fat?" Not weight, mind you, but fat. "Not that I can tell," I answered diplomatically, for I have, of course, memorised the Cosmopolitan guide to surviving marriage by lying through your teeth. It's clear as daylight that she has put on both weight and fat (whatever the distinguishing factor), but you could hang me up by tack-pins before I would admit to it.

"If I haven't put on fat," my wife mused, "why aren't my clothes fitting me any more?" Now here's the thing about moronic questions, if you answer them, you're last week's meat. So I did the only thing that husband's, who survive to tell the tale, do: I kept quiet. "Do you think I eat too much?" my wife continued. Yes, about thrice as much as you should, I could have answered, but refrained. "It's all nutritious stuff," I hedged instead, drawing a discreet veil over the pastry and the mousse I'd seen her dip into just moments ago.

"I suppose," she vexed, "it's just middle age." I nodded sympathetically. "So" sighed my wife, "I suppose we should act our age and not like my best friend Sarla, who still thinks she's some young wannabe even though she is years older than I am."

And because my wife did not wish to be like Sarla, she drew up a roster of things we could no longer do, right on top of which was a ban on late night parties, guest stay-overs (at our house), and anything to do with music.

"Can we be middle-aged from next week?" I asked my wife, hoping for a reprieve. "Don't be silly," she said, "I'm on a diet, and by next week I should be able to lose enough fat to be able to go out again, but this week we're definitely middle-aged." "You could wear a saree," I tried coaxing her. "To a rock evening?" she sounded horrified, "Do you think I'm like that Usha Uthup who wears sarees and gajras to nightclubs? I will have you know that I was brought up with enough sense to dress right for the occasion."

And no, she said "" I really did want to go "" she didn't see the sense of buying larger size outfits for just a few days, given that she was going to lose her weight, er, sorry, fat, before the week was out. Meanwhile, our agenda for the week was suitably modified to geriatric requirements: clear soup at seven in the evening (and if I was still at work, too bad, I had to skip the course), a dose of Ramayana on the television (no kidding), a light salad for dinner (to avoid gas, whatever that is), wake up to yoga on the lawns (eeyargh!), a healthy breakfast of fruit, and a packed office lunch consisting of dalia, or dahi or something suitably pruriently healthy but tasteless.

This afternoon she called to say she didn't think she was middle-aged after all. "Have you lost fat then?" I asked brightly. "No," she admitted, "I'm just a mildly obese young person." So, maybe we'll get to go for the rock evening after all.