Grow Your Muscles

Why does a gymnasium appeal to the average man?

This question needs to be analysed at a very basic level. To begin with, gyms are always filled with fearfully strong men (think, Arnold Shivajinagar), who with an accidental swing of their left arm could annihilate entire battalions of wimps (think, Yours Truly). Secondly, Gyms are home to abnormally dangerous amounts of iron (one gazillion parts per million) and other macabre metal implements, the sort of stuff which one Mr. G.W.Bush hoped to find in Iraq. Next up, Gyms (A/C and non-A/C) contain a good deal more than the socially accepted amount of human perspiration and the olfactory ills that go with it. Finally, male gyms never have girls inside them – not just because of the rules but also because women (surprisingly) display a lot of common sense in some instances and can recognize a stinky, dangerous, polluted no-entry zone when they see one.

Given the circumstances, it’s tough to see the reasoning behind a gymmer’s enthusiasm. Yet, any self respecting gym in the city almost always seems to have more than its share of muscle-maniacs.

True to their name, Gym(nasium)s come in all sizes. And shapes and smells. In fact, a man’s gym is a very accurate indicator to his socio-economic status. Every street and by-lane in Madras has its own gym, creatively named ‘Rambo-Vimal’, ‘Marudhapandi Muscles’ and so on. Coincidentally, most of these gyms are conveniently situated near TASMAC alcohol dispensaries (USP – The flowing blood of Madras). These gyms are predominantly patronised by testosterone rich guys whose daily life style involves pumping, flexing, bashing, gang warring and so on. Its fair to say that gymming is an occupational necessity for these kerchief collared executives. Middle class youngsters visit these gyms with abounding enthusiasm that wanes very fast since they can’t break ice with (or like) these people.

Then come the upper class Gyms that are sprouting in large numbers all over Madras. ‘Talwalkars’’, ‘Gymania’ and ‘Fitness’ might not sound as creative as their street side counterparts. But they make up for it with their higher end equipments, more cultured clientele and most importantly, air conditioned environs. The average customers to these gyms could be film stars, comedians, business-executives-with-no-time-to-use-their-memberships-goddammit et al. My brother Mithun who falls under the third category is a regular patron at one of these gyms, connected to a prominent star hotel. And he recalls hilarious encounters with a scrawny and uptight S.J.Suryah (first category) in the process of working out.

It’s pertinent to note two things here – firstly, we still have NO IDEA why people go to gyms. Secondly, does T. Raajendhar (second category) go to a gym? If yes, how do other people manage to even begin working out, in such unsettling company?

Last week, out of nowhere, the gym bug bit me. The reasons are pretty straightforward – Mithun’s biceps that now resemble a well proportioned pair of ‘ammikkal’ (grindstones) are giving me a real inferiority complex. But the real reason is that there is only so much time you can kill in final year B.E. doing crosswords, sudokus, swimming and visiting all the hotels in Adyar. So I decided to head gymwards and get some sinews growing.

College gyms probably come in between the star hotel and street side variants of the gym. While you can rest assured you won’t have ‘vague’ company to contend with, you won’t get sops like A/C either.

My baptism to gym-culture was vivid in the sense that I had this feeling I was entering a space ship or something. To begin with, I could not comprehend how each one of those things ‘worked out’. Thankfully I was with this guy who claimed spurious pre-gym experience, but I relented on the premise that something is better than nothing. After surveying the big gadgets, I decided to skip the work out and work out with the skipping rope instead. After treading safe waters on the tread mill, I did some more skipping and push-ups. At the end of all this, I felt sufficiently warmed up to go and flop on a bed.

But I resisted that temptation, since I was more interested in the ‘bigger picture’. After invoking the grace of the gym-god (Arnold Shivajinagar), I decided to bench-press. I lay down flat, took the handle and pulled. And pulled. The damned thing would not budge. That was the moment of realization when I realised three things:

“Surely, there must be another way to impress women, goddammit.”

“All men are born equal, some more equally muscled than others.”

“You can always reduce the loads on these instruments.”

I proceeded to reduce the load to infant level and operated the bench press thing with a sense of huge achievement. I then moved on to exercise my biceps, triceps, quadriceps, forceps, back, front, middle, bottom, top etc. using all the exercising devices adorning the Anna University Gym. Since then, there has been no looking back.

No, I mean, literally. I can’t turn back and I can’t move my limbs either. In fact, just getting out of bed seems like a major break-through. It’s now all the more difficult to comprehend the spell that a gym casts on man. In addition to all the ills initially listed out, it also makes one invalid. And apart from giving meat eaters an extra reason to gobble down more chicken in the guise of protein-rich diet, the immediate and far-reaching advantages of gymming are not very clear.

I could go on and on, but have to cut short here, since I have some (bench) pressing work to attend to. Do note that my intentions are good and that I say this only out of concern for mankind. Stay away from gyms.

At your own risk.

T. Raajendhar and Co. – here I come!