A "weightless" proposition

Right from time immemorial, read right from birth, I have never had it in me to give importance to fitness. I was never one of them to go around flexing muscles, by doing those pull ups and push ups, that added an aura of invincibility to your personality. Moreover, in India, I always thought it was difficult to devout time to such meaningless activities. Obviously, it is hard to imagine paying a few hundred bucks, going to the nearest gym, and spend about an hour or two in solitary confinement. That, for a person like me is totally unimaginable. Half the time was spent in travelling and the other half, chatting with friends and eating tonnes of junk food by the wayside. At one point, I felt I needed no physical activities, since I felt that spending time bowling and fielding cricket balls, more than served my purpose. Later did I realize that even in cricket, people like Ranatunga and Warne existed with disproportionate assets. In spite of all this, when somebody out of the blue recommended, I would quietly give an excuse, Oh, I cycle five hundred metres daily. So, no way in the world that I can become fat, I would say.

Many, many years later did I realize that all those wonderful samaritans did not ask me to go to the gym to cut down weight, but rather, most of them were getting numb seeing a thin creature walk on the roads, without any sense of understanding. That never meant, I was low on intakes. Never! Even if my mother, when not in her usual self, used to tell my friends, What is this, this fellow doesn't eat properly at all!!, my friends would yell out No aunty, don't worry at all, God only knows why he is like this; you just have no idea how much he eats. Well, that was because, these guys used to see me eat, eat and eat. Even though I used to go to college at eight in the morning, I used to spend the morning recess, afternoon break and the after college hour, eating. The time in between was spent in a trance.

As I continued with my zeal for eating anything and everything, I realized that I should do what I can on my part, and put on some weight. It was after all proper, that, atleast I shifted my center of gravity, from dead center to somewhere near the chest. This, after all, is not a bad thought on my part, isn't it? Immediately, I enrolled myself to the nearest gym. I had to do it at the moment, because such moments of realization are very less, and importantly, they never last long enough. As they always say, when you are in the zone, just go for it! So, as a part of the joining benefit, I was entrusted with a trainer to find out about the initial status of my (lack of)muscular weight. She, being a nice girl, did her level best to suppress her volcanic bursts of laughter that was slipping out from within her. After running through the various physical tests, I could see her sport a devilish grin on her face. Or maybe, the lack of weights was creating havoc in my mind. Or it could be that, she had found a one in a million test case as a perfect example of how not to be. She chalked out a perfect routine for me, and told me to meet her after a month.

So, every day, off I went after work to maintain a perfect schedule of what she advised me to do. I was an eager student wanting desperately to gain that extra ounce of weight, the extra ounce that could really make a difference! Some of my friends were baffled, wondering when I had become fitness savvy, and I was baffled to see them baffled! After all, I wanted to show some progress at the end of the month! So, finally, as my time approached to assess my fitness regime after a month, I was more than eager to find out as to whether my hidden mus-kels had surfaced miraculously. There I was, an enthusiastic student, and she was pleased with my daily schedule. After all, who goes to gym regularly, and that too, in such an energetic and enthusiastic way. Truly, I thought, she must be blessed to have such a student. Finally, she said, OK, let us see how much you weight now. Well, this was the moment I was waiting for. As I stood on the weighing machine, I felt that I should contribute whatever I can to aid gravity. I stood as though I had won the gold medal in Olympics. She played around with the scales, adjusted the lever to perfection, checked my previous entry and yelled in delight. There I was, as if standing in front of my manager, expecting a raise. This had to be the moment. Praveen, congratulations, you have not lost an ounce of weight. You weigh exactly the same as what you weighed a month ago. Looks like you have maintained an excellent diet. I wish somebody could have captured that moment!!!!