Ranjay, a young IT professional in Bengaluru, lived on instant noodles, burgers, and energy drinks. “Who has time to cook?” he often said. His days were spent coding, scrolling social media, and binge-watching late into the night. Sleep-deprived and restless, he never understood why he felt so exhausted.
One evening, while hurrying home, he collided with a woman at a juice shop. The impact was hard, and Ranjay’s energy drink flew out of his hand, landing with a splash on her dress. The drink the woman was taking fell too.
“Ah! What’s wrong with you?” she shouted, brushing off the red liquid from her kurti.
“Sorry, sorry!” Ranjay apologized. “I’ll get you another juice. What were you having?”
“Carrot and beetroot juice,” she said, calming down. “It keeps the body and mind fresh. You should try it instead of that toxic syrup.”
Ranjay smirked. “Health freak?”
“More like… conscious about what I feed my body and mind,” she replied. “I’m Anju, by the way.”
A couple of time they kept running into each other—at a bookshop, and again on the same roadside fruit stall. Anju’s world fascinated Ranjay. “You are what you eat,” she would often say. But Ranjay would always laugh it off.
One night, after a long binge-watching session filled with aggressive debates and violent content, Ranjay sat scrolling his phone when suddenly, a strange unease gripped him. His heartbeat spiked, pounding against his chest like a drum. His hands turned clammy, and his vision blurred. Gasping for air, he clutched his throat, feeling as though it was closing in. His mind screamed, “I’m dying!”
He stumbled to the window, trying to take deep breaths, but the panic only worsened. His legs felt weak, his head spun, and a crushing weight pressed down on his chest. The walls seemed to close in, the world shrinking. He collapsed onto his bed, his body trembling uncontrollably. The fear was real, paralyzing. It took almost an hour for his breathing to settle, but even then, the terror lingered.
The next evening, as he met Anju at a street vendor, she noticed his pale face and restless eyes. “What happened to you?”
He hesitated, then confessed. “I don’t know. I just felt like I was dying last night. My heart was racing, my chest was tight… I thought I was having a heart attack.”
Anju nodded knowingly. “Panic attack. You feed your mind with negativity all day—arguing online, consuming stressful content. What do you expect it to digest?”
She then challenged him. “Come with me tomorrow. Just once.”
The next morning, she took him to a silent retreat outside the city. “No phones, no junk food, no distractions. Just you and your thoughts.”
He scoffed. “Sounds like a prison.”
But by evening, his discomfort was undeniable—his head pounded, his body ached, his thoughts raced. At midnight, he woke up gasping for air again, panic gripping him.
Anju found him pacing outside. “Don’t worry, Ranjay. You’re detoxing. Not just your body, but your mind too.”
The next morning, weak but determined, Anju led him to a hilltop where a small group sat meditating. The crisp air filled his lungs, but his mind was still a battlefield. The silence forced him to confront his thoughts—work stress, social media rants, mindless debates.
Then it all started to open up… some fleeting thoughts gradually intensifying into a deep realization. A realization of what was going on. His mind has been laden with junk, just the same way his body had been. He had fed himself stress, negativity, and empty distractions. He had stuffed his brain with food that is equivalent of the greasy, unhealthy food he had been consuming for his body. No wonder he felt so drained all the time.
As he opened his eyes, Anju smiled knowingly. “Felt that, didn’t you?”
Ranjay exhaled deeply. “You were right. You are what you eat. Not just food, but everything—thoughts, habits, even people.”
From that day on, Ranjay made small changes—fresh meals, mindful content, moments of silence. He unfollowed negativity, cut down distractions, and replaced mindless scrolling with moments of stillness.
One morning, months later, he and Anju sat together on the same hilltop, meditating once again. This time, peace wasn’t an escape. It was his way of life.