My good morning habit

Lourembam Ibetombi Devi *

The morning starts quite early. The alarm is always set for quarter past three, not one minute later. My husband and I used to get up at once, at first alarm and rarely at the second alarm which is after five minutes. The morning duties take about twenty minutes. We take a litre of water each before we start the day’s works.

Having water in the morning helps our body in many ways, getting active, rehydration of cells, starting vital activities etc. Dressing up in our sports dress takes about five minutes. It is important that we have a kit for our exercise.

It makes us smart and active and help in mental preparedness. In half an hour time we are ready. Getting out the vehicle takes another five minutes. We carry a litre of water each for taking after the workouts.

On the way we hum songs of all sorts together, one has to just start a song, the other will join, we forget the whole world. We keep on singing till we reach officers club, takes about twelve minutes to reach there. By 4 am, we are there in the club.

In the meantime we would have finished two or three songs. Singing is good for health, it is good for heart and lungs, that way, we forget the whole world and all the worries and tension. It is the best stress buster. Everybody in this world has their worries and tension, but forgetting them for a few hours a day is important.

To be healthy, we need good physical health, mental health, psychological health and spiritual health. I would say, nowadays, the consciousness is growing, in the club, the early birds group is growing. On the way, in one or two localities, there are a few groups (mostly housewives) doing Asanas. It is a heartening sign.

On reaching the club, we find that a few of his friends are already there, Chittaranjan, brother Ibomcha, Pritam, Brojen are early birds. We wish each other, we even wish strangers. In the Officers’ Club nobody is a stranger for long, in a few days time, he is friend for everybody.

After greeting each we all chat for just three four minutes and share a few jokes and humours, which are so pricelessin lifting our spirits. We would then do some basic warm up, my husbandthen will get in to the badminton court and I will go for a walk for half an hour and then do my exercises, Pranayams and Asanas, near the tennis courts.

A bit later, tennis courts shall have members like Addl DGP (Sir MallanaGoud) and the Chief Secretary (new CS), they come very regularly. There too, we greet each other, as I told earlier; nobody is a stranger, even the escort personnels. While playing or doing exercise, we never remember anything but focus on our game and exercise, thus give our mind a good rest, which is also equally important. All these would take about two hours.

After the morning so spent, I feel so light, my movements are free and body is supple. All the movements are pleasant. Some people say, they do not have time, but I can tell that when sickness comes, nobody can say that he or she do not have time. Health is after all the best wealth one has, so is it too much to spare two hours a day for it?

On way back, we would drop in at the Eema Market, the vegetable vendors. Eema Market, the name came from being “All Ladies’ Market”and now it is symbol of women empowerment and famous countrywide.

We pick up all fresh vegetables and local fruits, we have different kinds of local fruits and vegetables for different seasons. Manipur I would say is the richest place in terms of vegetables and fruits, many are of wild and organic origin. We used to carry our carry bags, both small ones and large ones so that we do not take any plastic from the vendors.

In fact, we used to reuse the polythene bags ten times, reducing the plastic pollution to ten percent only, my husband says that we can reduce it to even five percent.

Five percent would be a small and manageable quantity, and this is highly possible if we are just mindful to take the carry bags from home when we set off for market.This always makes me feel happy that I am doing a great deed in the morning. Would it not be a big contribution for all of us if we can together bring down plastic pollution to five percent?

At home, we quickly prepare our breakfast, one will prepare lemon juice and tea, one will get the breads and fruits we just bought ready, so in about twenty minutes, the breakfast is ready. So, by seven, we are ready for the days rigours, by then many are yet to get up. My good morning habit gives me a head start. I always look forward to the next morning, to make it a good morning.