Sweat it out!

(Content may be offensive to some: Reader discretion is recommended)

Sweat it out. Sweating is the most natural thing to do, I am told; it’s also the most disgusting, I am sure, in polite society. Therefore those sweat gland caps, the anti-perspirants. They let you burn in peace, no sweat, no evaporation, no cooling, no stink, no sweat. What is my theory on raising an arm in the sun? You need your supply of deodorants, not anti-perspirants. Your armpits are wet and it shows, but they smell, aha, good! Can that ever be a come-hither sign? Think of it from the fairer sex point of view: fragrant armpits! Just a few letters off ‘hairy’. Doesn’t it sound like that?


Every hot, coarse, humid, sweaty, callous summer in Kolkata (Calcutta), you get sick of perspiring, wiping your brow, looking as unkempt as the tramp at Tiffany’s. I remember in Atlanta, once, long years ago, temperatures had just crossed 30 degrees C, and rising. The city was in turmoil! Children were falling sick, their parents too. Citizens were requested to avoid the sun, keep to the shade, and special water atomizers were deployed at street corners so you could stand there and let your soul (perhaps your body as well) cool down to peace levels. Then you move onto the next street corner, and so on. This poor Calcuttan had more of his share of sweaty bodies than he can care to remember, and I was rather amused.


Then there are air-conditioned bus-stops in Dubai, Germany was sweltering at 40 degrees C because they had never seen a fan! It happened to me once, in the Indian hill town of Manali. Those days the place hadn’t become so cosmopolitanily crowded, and you could get board and lodging for cheap. After a long bus ride that summer I retired to my cheapo lodge, had a bath and realized I was sweating. I was sweating in Manali! Asked for a fan and was politely told there aren’t any. The global warming media drama hadn’t started yet, but the signs were there, on my sweaty palms and, of course, in my armpits.


The most interesting part is the city bus ride, especially in a city like Calcutta, where, I am sure, every body sweats like pigs. Now just a second…. Do pigs sweat? I am trying not to be offensive to the animal farm, especially pigs, you see, but I thought that was the ‘usage’. Isn’t it? Anyway, let’s get back to the bus ride. Actually, travel in the Calcutta afternoons are pleasanter in a bus – pleasanter than in a cab. The heat doesn’t kill you so heartlessly, and you can still hang on the footboard and catch the ‘breeze’ (the diesel fumes are a bonus). Then you get a seat, not quite beside the window, because that squat brat wouldn’t give up his little squibbly right to that spot, and you settle down.


The first drop on your arm is the warning. You look up into a sweaty face, looking down at you, smiling, almost, and you see the next stinky globule form, somewhat yellowish, or are your eyes jaundiced? Plop, it falls straight onto your spectacle lens. (I have deleted many words after this, they were what we call expletives. Pretty decent words, otherwise, except that my blog would then be otherwise categorized. I need to monetize this, some day.)


Before you can wipe that off with your already sticky handkerchief, comes the fragrance, from his armpit. He NEVER bathes, you can be sure of that. He never… who cares? The guy has no business smelling like this in a bus. Then you turn around and squat brat is as smelly; the waft is carried with the breeze that enters from the window.


You why air-conditioners were invented? To prevent smelly sweat. That’s the same reason cars are getting the air-do these days, more fuel consumption and damage to the ozone layer notwithstanding. They say cattle farts add a substantial amount of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Doesn’t armpit stench?


I have plans to conduct a full-fledged research on armpit stench (now there are professionals who do that, I read in NG, but that is too academic, and is a subject of smell). I need a fund source. I promise to recruit able armpit-sniffers who would categorise such stench in different stages, including the UNBREATHABLE.


That’s a lot of nonsense for a serious blog like this. And I thought I was trying to make some money for all of you. Read this, anyway, and comment if you wish.


Till then, sweat it out!