From an independent double-story house in a cozy lane in Southcity-I to a 4 BR Flat in newer urban Gurgaon 14 kms away. Been quite a change indeed. The first adjustment was getting used to the noise and light pollution, being just 300m from the NH and 50m off the main axis into one of Gurgaon’s fastest developing high rise sectors.
The view from the 9th Floor is 360 degrees and while one can see the Aravallis envelop one from the ESE to the NW, the urban landscape, or should I say skyscape, takes in the rest. Interesting new place. A bit far from my work place and also my ‘seva’ NGO but that’s no hinderance …. just a minor hiccup. And btw, I found a fully tarmaced shortcut, bypassing the ignominious toll on my first return trip on 18 Apr.
The first three weeks were tough with the interior guys and their riff-raff keeping us on our toes through the day. Things have stabilized and one is now enjoying the environment and getting upmarket like the young dudes of new Gurgaon. The Gym is across the boundary wall and that is a huge solace. One doesn’t need to get tired merely reaching it. Every evening on the dot of 6 p.m. we are both gyming in full josh. Who would imagine me … a lazy bum to the core …. doing it at 68. But I am. I take the gents’ shift and my lady love, the ladies one. Our eyesight has definitely improved even if there has been no change to the weight or the muscle tone. But I guess these things take time and we need to lean over our 9th heaven balcony a little more. We also need to roll our eyes for at least 30 minutes and not 15, as we watch the 2nd Floor terrace gymers huff and puff on their outdoor sortie, as we exercise our eyeballs, scanning the mavericks, whilst sipping our green tea with cake. Maybe inter changing our gents & ladies shifts might also add the yoga angle with deep breathing besides helping in losing a little weight and improving distant vision.
The mornings here are stupendous. The view is ethereal and the sounds of birds and vehicles intermixes with a persisting and consistence ‘head bangers ball’ kind of beat, which transports my memory to the quaint world of the Mahalakakshmi Dhobi Ghats of Mumbai … yes! the same ghats where over-aged tilted Salmans and stammering Khans tango their cradle snatching gallivanting stunts, while overweight underclad dhobis and dhobans, wash Mumbai’s dirty linen in public.
The beat …. sometimes I want to lean and call out to the over muscled dudes banging a poor un-retaliating Mansfield tyre with a sledge hammer, to chill and spend that energy washing the bedsheets at home. Will save on the electricity bills definitely and while it may not give the ‘thud beat’, I am sure it will give the same muscle tone besides immeasurable happiness to their mommy/wifey dearests. Also takes me back 50 years or more to Malamud and his ‘The Seven Years’. Despite his conceitful move, Sobel, the cobbler, found Feld ‘pounding leather for his love’ the next morning, when he gave the apprentice the option to work for two more years if he wished to marry his daughter. Clearly love had prevailed …. as it always must. I have my doubts about any love angle or triangle, in beating the hell out of a Mansfield every morning with a sledge hammer though. Doesn’t qualify under any POSH or homestead violence either, so I can’t lodge an FIR.
And then these guys spill out of the Gym. Many walk as if they had a severe case of hydrocele or piles or were practicing using their legs as bows in some vague archery competition they only would know about. Muscles spill out from undersized clothing. A vision of ‘hunchback of Notre Dame’ fleets by. I will refrain from expressing my comments on the poor women who totter out. Most look anything but happy …. I guess ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ includes gym-ing like a freak these days. All of them are sipping from flasks. Some energy drink I suppose. Why spend so much money and energy at a gym in the first place …. if you have to buy and sip an energy drink to breathe again. The muscle tone fodder guy, whose shop is full of tins with grotesque looking barely clad men and women on the tin sheets, has a sly smile whenever I cross his shop. The guy is a half pint himself, glibly, effectively convincing ….nay, motivating the gullible muscle brained hoi-polloi, addictive powders (perhaps steroid enriched for instant gratification) which will surely take their toll on their health in the next 5-10 years on most of them. Welcome to the urbanely urban Gurgaon …. the land of abnormal muscles …. not organic, healthy sea salt mussels.
Expect more as I explore some more ‘mors’ (turnings and T-points), but till then …. a muscular blink to bid goodbye. I can feel the twinge of a ‘muscular eyebrow’ forming already. Hallelujah!!
Warning & Self – Safety Notice : This article is in lighter vein … before some gym crazy muscle brain, also low on the intricacies of the English language, squeezes the juice out of my aged veins.
by Col Anil Alagh (9312247284)
