See no fat; see just urine.

His name was Dr. Khare. A urologist by profession, he was also a self-proclaimed brahmin pundit that had expansive knowledge in a realm of subjects -- most famously, yoga and eye care. In fact, he was famous in India for having come up with a system to mend people's dilapidated vision without further need for any lenses or eye surgery. He was thus brought to our house in the summer of 2000 upon the recommendation of my maternal uncle.

After muttering our introductions, Dr. Khare asked us to stand up and turn around for him, and then sat us down for a pep talk.

"You are good guhls, and that's why I am telling you this, because you are like my daughters," he began. "There are some things all guhls want, no? Such as, all guhls want to have children, right? Biologically, all guhls desire to nurture and bring up children. Any guhl who does not want this would be abnormal, na?"

I nodded while wearing a blank Homer Simpson stare, internally shuddering as I envisioned myself muffling my ears with the pillow as my future babies cried for milk and a diaper change from their turd-infested playpen.

Dr. Khare then proceeded on to his next logical leap.

"And to have children, you must get married, no?"

I nodded again, fantasizing about cloning myself in a petri dish and naming the result "mini-ree," or having wild unprotected sex with Johnny Depp and birthing his bastard child (John Abraham wasn't around then).

Then came the upshot: "And who will marry you if you are fat?!"

My sister and I glanced at each other incredulously.

"This is why I will teach you some important things during these two weeks I am staying here. I came actually to help with your wision, but since eye and body is connected, my program will also help you lose weight and be fit and healthy so you can be happy."

I again nodded blindly.

My sister, though, was more vocal in her dissent, so he mentally filed us in his western-vocal-rebellious and traditional-quiet-compliant dichotomy and accordingly approached her more warily.

My parents were sympathetic to our distate toward Dr. Khare's philosophy behind our in-house summer fat camp, but they nevertheless encouraged us to dismiss his flawed value system and extract the benefit of his twice-born wisdom for the sake of our "health." We couldn't help but wonder what this chump had up his sleeve, so we woke up at 8am and showed up to the family room as he instructed.

What followed was a series of exercises that primarily worked the muscles of the eyes and rectum. Dr. Khare demonstrated the latter's constriction by clenching and releasing a fist while seated in Indian style with his eyes closed, breathing deeply.

For lunch, we would eat three teaspoons of a special sabzi made from watermelon rind.

After dinner, my family, four educated adults, would gather around the dinner table with our elbows on the table and palms covering our eyes for thirty minutes, while Dr. Khare paced and talked us through a new-age prayer for improved vision. "Imagine a black welwet in front of your eyes," he would say softly, "See it relaxedly. Just the black welwet. Now, chant the name of God: Om Gam Ganapataye Namah."

These activities would be duly interspersed with lectures on the benefits of drinking urine and inserting urine droplets into one's eyes.

It has been almost five years since then, and I am more fat, blind, and unmarried than ever. I also foolishly waste the remedial potential of my urine by disposing of it in the toilet. But at least I have Dr. Khare's therapeutic notes stashed in my closet under a box of tampons, should I ever resolve to cure myself of these ills.