GYMMING IN CHENNAI

Real men of Chennai (or what passes for real men) hit the gyms. And they have biceps bigger than a foot in circumference. They are to be seen wandering around in tight T shirts, sweat-pants and trainer shoes; mostly in gyms. No handle-bar moustache either, turned up at the tips or otherwise. It is quite amusing to observe these wanna-be macho men at the gyms. What am I doing there? Well, having been given an ultimatum by my doctor about various highs and lows (high in bad things and low in good things, generally) and a stern lecture on the need to get my rear end up and moving, I have been reluctantly dragged off to the nearest gym by a concerned spouse. While at the gym I have been keenly observing the rest of the crowd more from the perspective of getting the most output from the least input. If you are depressed, starved of entertainment and generally about to end it all, I suggest you enlist in a gym at once - the experience might be life-altering in more than one sense.

You get to see different types at the Chennai gym.
The first are the so-called personal trainers and the gym-rats. The former are supposed to help the users get bulges in the right places but are too preoccupied with their own, often seen preening in front of the wall to wall mirrors. They critically examine their left profile and then their right  until reluctantly and resentfully answering a gym-user's cry for help.They are usually in T's and sweats with the gym's logo on them but even otherwise they are easy to identify: they walk around  with their torso inside a parentheses formed by their bulging arms. My interactions suggest that all this body building sucked the material out of their cranium leaving a vacuous and uncomprehending hulk. But they seem happy. Who am I to complain.

The gym rats walk around with a special swagger which comes naturally only to those running 10 miles in 30 minutes, lift weights with nonchalance and walk backwards on the treadmill at 6 mph even as most of us struggle to walk forwards at 6 Kmph. These don't have the one foot biceps that the Trainers possess, but are competitive: they lean over to see what others are doing and do it longer and faster. The gym-rat exhibits a rare bonhomie with the Trainer, frequently indulging in friendly competitions with the latter. Then there is a sub-class, the trainer-in-the-making, usually identifiable as the one who does everything the trainer does but without the bulges. They are noticeable  for their preoccupation with high-protein diets such as dozens of egg whites a day. They obviously cannot or unwilling to keep up the schedule of training; drop out regularly and resurface again to start a punishing exercise regimen only to drop out for the next week or two, and so on. The wannabe torso-in-parentheses can't seem to conjure up the requisite amount of will-power and egg-whites.

The pink panthers, as the name suggests, are visions in pink, top to bottom, all four and a half feet (top to toe as well as left to right) of them. The reference to panthers notwithstanding they are far from sleek and are unlike ever to be so. A mass of quivering jelly covered in pink designer-wear their first port of call after the gym session is a "jam session" at the nearby deli / pizza shop where they tear into carbs and fries with a desperation that can only come from 5 minutes on the treadmill at 2Kmph. Their form might suggest that they are far more regular at the deli than at the gym. In a variation, attributable to recessive genes, they are in all black with shoes of fluorescent green, yellow or pink. In a further variation, the shoes too are in black but the shoe laces are in brightest orange, green etc.

This being a movie-town I can hardly fail to mention the filmy-type (translation: everything from a Producer to a light boy aspiring to be a Producer-Director some day) whose objective seems to be to look good on the casting couch. They have an interesting and symbiotic relationship with the trainers: they hope somehow the latter will sculpt them into an impressive mass of irresistibility and the latter hope to achieve body-building nirvana as "body sculptor" in a box-office smash-hit.

Chennai is also a Tech city and that means you will have a sprinkling of Techies at the gym. They have the geekiest physiques as well as the most determination to bend their bodies as much as they do their minds at work. Usually very young their gym wear betray a recent longish sojourn in the U.S.of A. Their cell-phones constantly beep and  in between gasps on the treadmill they pant out instructions on coding - at least that's what I think the panting is all about.

And then there's the retired, retiring types such as yours truly who have been dragged to the gym kicking and screaming. I get  there when there's a waiting line for the equipment, do a spot of crowd-watching and leave in an hour.