The Gym Log

Instead of dilly-dallying beating about the bush and tip-toeing around the essentials, i shall get right down to clear and irrefutable facts. i have joined a gymnasium. Yes, exclaim aloud in amazement and wonder if you must but do not, for one minuscule moment, doubt the veracity of the statement. It is true. i have gone and agreed to sacrifice my evenings hitherto dedicated to lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, juggling a balloon with my feet without letting it touch the floor (the balloon i mean, not my feet. Be damned difficult to juggle a balloon without letting my feet touch the floor) or staring fixedly at a watch face and willing the seconds hand to move backwards; to running on treadmills that dont move, cycling maniacally on cycles that dont move and attempting to lift weights that, in a spirit of congruity with its fellow-gym-equipment-brethren, dont move. i dont know how the, for lack of a better word, event came to pass. i guess you could say that i was goaded into committing this act of treachery against my soul and my principles, values and judgment, by my mother. Herself a gym-er for some nineorten years she has often prevailed over my better sense, waving away my arguments outlining the advantages of inaction, laziness and general inertness, and forcing me into the room of mechanical monstrosity that is the "Gym". In fact, if i recall correctly, this is my third initiation into the world of health and fitness, my first two having concluded ingloriously in utter and abject failure. Be that as it may, with a heavy heart (and a heavy bag containing a towel, shoes and a water bottle) i re-acquainted myself with the people and equipment, that make a gym what it is.

Nauseating though the prospect of paying money to wantonly engage in physical labour is, i would be the first to admit that joining a gym has its advantages. For a keen student of human (and sub-human, to include all of the gymnasium's clientele) psychology such as myself, it presents a marvellous opportunity to study the mental machinations and intellect, or whatever there is of it, of the homo sapien and on certain wednesdays and saturdays, a pair of neanderthals. i have thus, after painstaking research lasting almost three visits to the gym and involving copious amount of notes on the behaviour patterns of the subjects under examinations, formulated a system of classification of "The Gym Log", i.e., people who frequent the death-den masquerading as a "fitness centre".

The Alpha - At the top of the pyramid you have the Alpha. He who has the body of Adonis and the mind of Thor. The remarkable thing about the Alpha is that you will never see him working out. He may be spotted roaming about the room with a superior smirk on his face and swinging his sculpted arms like a gorilla or providing little tidbits of exercising knowledge to ears eager to draw protein-shake from his well of experience or simply standing in front of the mirror (which adorn all the walls of the room for his benefit) admiring his reflection. The Alpha basks in the adulation of his followers. He worships Salman Khan, swears by WWE (previously WWF, before the animals complained of the ignominy of being confused with spandex clad wrestlers) and unhindered by a two-digit IQ, can in three attempts spell schwarzenegger. The Alpha is the king of the jungle of the Gym.

The Sidekick - Where you have the Alpha, the Sidekick can never be far behind. Endowed with the same intellectual capacity as the Alpha, the Sidekick however falls short on physical capabilities. The Sidekick has a love-hate relationship with the Alpha; fawning over him at one moment and cracking jokes about the chemical supplements the Alpha ingests to maintain his physique, the next (or more specifically, when the Alpha is conspicuous by his absence). The Sidekick is more often than not spotted labouring in the grips of some grotesque instrument in an honest albeit futile effort to graduate into the Alpha category. Due to this fate, the Sidekick is destined to play second fiddle to the Alpha's lead role in the Gym; to be the Hyena who gets the bone while the Lion keeps all the muscle.

The Freshers - It would not be too far wrong to say that the Freshers to a Gym are like the fodder for the cattle, the wood for the fireplace, the fruit for the juicer, the meat for the cleaving machines, etc. etc. Indeed, they are the souls that keep the fires of Hell burning strong and alive. A Gym would be lost without its Freshers and there would be chaos. The Fresher's awe gives purpose to the life of the Alpha and the Fresher also doubles up as a punching bag for the Sidekick to vent his frustration at not being able to complete 100 chin-ups. The Freshers are also the most mutable and are most likely to graduate into any one of the other categories. They are the most enthusiastic, fueled by dreams of achieving Alpha status and un-scarred by the rigours of time and failure like the Sidekick. Interestingly, the Freshers show greater intellectual aptitude than both Alpha and Sidekick, but with some degree of dedication and effort are able to blunt their faculties. This is achieved in most cases by listening to a certain brand of music, labelled "Gym Music", notable artists being Himesh, every DJ Something Remix-er, Hip-Hop Artists, Himesh, etc. The Fresher may be spotted taking dietary advice from the Alpha and trying to lift the same weights as the Sidekick thereby dislocating his shoulder, and with any luck, crippling himself forever.

The Damned - Finally, we have the ones who live in the shadows. They infest every Gym and yet you cannot see them. They slink in the corners and creep in the....well....places conducive to creeping. They are usually forced into the cruel world of the gymnasium against their will. They are the Yin to the Alpha's Yang. Extremely difficult to locate, they may be seen momentarily drifting over the walker or the medicine ball, before they make their exit leaving a faintly unpleasant trace of something old and rotten. Their intellectual abilities are difficult to gauge as they refrain from any contact with the other inhabitants of the Gym. They are unsocial, lonely creatures who despise the Gym and its occupants but are too weak to revolt. They are often the subjects of ridicule and practical jokes at the hands of the Freshers and Sidekicks seeking to establish their credentials and authority in the Gym.

i believe i have dealt with the taxonomy of life-forms existing in the Gym quite comprehensively. If however, you feel that i have not done adequate justice to any of the categories or that i have missed a genus altogether, please feel free to drop me a mail. My trash box is empty and i would love to fill it up. On an ending note, i have much to say about the horrific genre i called "Gym Music", but i suppose i will do that some other time.

Fractions and Factions

Are you alive or Are you waiting to die? Do you know yourself or Do you create the illusion that helps you survive? Is this the life you wanted or Is this you, fulfilling their fantasies? Did you make the choice to become what you are, what you shall be? Or did the choice make you what you are now and what you shall never be?

When i was young, no, younger, i often gazed at the night sky in wonderment. i was never very good at identifying constellations. i got mixed up drawing lines between the thousand little dots. So i gave up and just stared. Out of moving cars on highways. Out of windows in rooms. Out from the verandah-balcony. And sometimes, but not very often, out from the open terrace six floors high. i stared at the thousand blinking unblinking specks of white pinpoint holes in the all absorbing blackness of the cloak enveloping our nocturnal lives. And i wondered at the utter and complete insignificance of it all - of everything - our planet (which looked so small in the pictures of the solar system and far away galaxies in my books), our countries, our wars, our lives, our successes, our failures - everything. i never understood why people were so ....involved, so immersed, in what i guess i can know safely 'label' as "material excesses" when everyone should be thinking about the universe and the millions of stars and trillions of planets but most of all, the ways and means to realize the inevitable moment of contact with extraterrestrial, i.e., "alien" life. There was bound to be another Earth tucked away in some distant recess of the universe, my pint-sized astronomical education gleaned from pocket-sized treatises whispered in my ear confidently. i had resolved to dedicate my life in furthering the great cause of affecting that discovery, that moment of revelation....when life would lose irrelevance and be awarded with purpose. But then of course, i didnt.

What was the point in my telling you all of this? i dont know. And maybe thats just it. Maybe thats the point. When i read Tintin, i wanted to be a reporter. Not so long after that i wanted to be a writer, globe-trotter, space explorer, scientist (not the dorky type but the cool genius types), pilot, blue-chip billionaire, hermit, copywriter and musician. i was going to be everything of everything. But thats not how the world functions. Thats not how people live their lives. There comes a point when the childish dreams and juvenile fantasies have to be swept aside to be replaced with pragmatism, logic, hate, masquerades and ...well, the real world, really. You cant go on living out boyhood ideals. You Grow Up.

And, right then, just right at that very moment, a part of you ...dies. But is it possible to turn back time? To resurrect the dead? To somehow someway anyway breathe that little flame of freedom, of caring and uncaring, of relevancies and insignificances, back into life? If yes, then when do you know that the moment is upon you? Is this what was meant to be or Is this you trying to escape the real world? Are you truly what you make of yourself or Are you really what life makes of you? i dont know. But one can always hope to know and hope that its not too late to know and hope it wont be too late to know.

i have nothing left to say. i had nothing to say to begin with. i m troubled and i am at peace, with myself. i m not at the proverbial crossroads. i cannot see anything. i m being pulled, torn from all sides. i dont think i m moving in any direction at all. Its just this one thing i cant figure out and that keeps gnawing at my insides and bleeding out of my eyes.

Am i whats right or Am i whats left?

There and back again (but with the distinct possibility of having to go There again..and may or may not come back to go or not go again)

Just to be clear at the outset, the extended (within brackets) bit of the title is merely to avoid any possible litigation by Christopher Tolkien claiming inappropriate-slash-improper use of what by, the law of copyright, belongssss to his father, hiss precioussssss. The title i mean, not the ring. Well, actually, maybe the ring would also fall within copyright protection but.....whats that?..oh right, sorry.

Which is not to say that the title is untrue. Indeed, it is just the opposite of untrue. It is true.

For now though, i am back. You know, now that i think about it, i should have kept a diary of some sort like the 18th(?) 19th(?) 20th (?) century explorers did, when they went on those expeditions into the heart of Africa or Honolulu or wherever. An account of all the wild adventures, the death defying experiences and the prehistoric animals they encountered and ultimately battled into submission. My trip to the city of ...um...(well actually i dont quite know what exactly so i shall leave the space blank till i come up with a jazzy little adjective) was fraught with equally, if not more so, grave and dangerous (mis)adventures. A journal, therefore, would have been quite the thing. But its too late now i guess. And to tell the truth i havent yet decided if i want to tell the tales at all, scandalous and disreputable as they are. Yes i know, very secretive and mysterious and all that. i bet your dying to hear the stories now, huh? Well, too bad. i am not telling.

(rude gesture. i'll leave it to your imagination.)

Ho Hum

i do not have chicken pox anymore. i m cured. Just thought i'd mention it. In case you were worried and concerned. In fact, i can picture you now; pacing around in your room in restless agitation, worried sick, perhaps feeling the pain (or itch, rather) that i had to suffer and wishing that you could somehow do something to help a soul so pure and noble as ...well, mine. Do not fret. It is over. Except some bloody spots that stubbornly persist and insist on making me look like a polka dotted greek god. (when i mentioned this to some of my friends, they nearly had convulsions they were laughing so hard. Ah-hah, i smiled knowingly, u like the polka dotted joke huh? No, they said, we were just imagining the shock the greek gods must have suffered if they heard you. i cannot bring myself to repeat the various other observations they went on to make regarding my physicality. When i say that "hes more like a spotted anorexic baboon with a growth hormone disorder" was perhaps the least offensive, you will realise what i had to deal with. And i call them my friends...)

But thats not the point, i was saying something else......what was it now? Oh yes, i am cured. And i would have proclaimed my return to health earlier to put you out of your misery and ease your wearied, tortured minds, but i had....have exams. Yes, i know what you are thinking. From the melting pot and into the fire. Exactly. But such is life. It is as if some particularly sneaky, twisted mind is up there controlling our lives and deriving particular pleasure in rubbing our faces in the mud and generally goading us in the direction of doom and desolation. A bit on the dark and gloomy side this outlook, i agree but this is what exams do to me. The strain of focussing my considerable mental resources on a single subject for too long makes me irritable and prone to look at the grimmer side of things. Imagine having to drive a ferrari or a lamborgini at no more than 20 km/hr and in a straight never-ending line and you have a rough idea of what i mean. Prolonged exposure to this sort of stress may result in making you want to tear your hair out, death (when you see yourself in the mirror after passing through the first symptom) or worse, a permanent blunting and dulling of your mind (not to mention a very unbecoming head with a scarred scalp.) And once that happens, the blunting and dulling, i mean, existence loses its point. You might as well go study and get a job or something. You may even end up, and i shudder to even think of anyone unfortunate enough to suffer this inhuman fate, having to work.

And the really pippy part is the inevitably of it all. You may fight against it (as me and my comrades have been doing all our lives) but in the end it doesnt even matter. Every moment u fight against it you are once step closer to the edge and you cannot break this habit tonight. You become so numb and you feel a crawling in your skin and......Sorry, i sort of got carried away but you have to admit that old Chester knew what he was talking about. (Footnote One. Well, actually, it just occurred to me and you too, will no doubt observe, that this is not a footnote in the truest sense of the term, since it does not appear at the foot but rather in the body of the note. So, to correct my earlier error, Bodynote One- Trivia: did u know that linkin park actually wanted to call themselves 'Lincoln Park' but didnt get the rights to use the name? No? Well stick around me and you will be rewarded with countless such valuable nuggets of information... or you could just read wiki; but then you will be missing out on my delightfully charming and witty company, which would be a tremendous shame.) (Bodynote Two. i may be starting some new form of literary referencing technique here with the bodynotes and you are the first ones to experience it. Feel the moment for it is historic. But coming back to the bodynote - linkin park is not really my favourite band in case you got the idea that i was crazy about them. Not even in the top 10 of my favourite bands in fact. i prefer other cooler and more obscure, underground type bands that you have never heard of. Always remember that you judge the prowess of a music aficionado by the number of obscure, unknown bands he worships. The lesser the number of people who have heard of the band (let alone hearing the band itself (this, by the way, is a note within a note, an in-bodynote if you will. Yet another innovation. i m on a roll)) the cooler and hipper it is, to be their die-hard fan. Incidentally, i was once in a band myself and now often name my band in my list of top class musicians. Since no one knows we ever existed, most believe that it is some kickass swedish alt rock outfit. Unfortunately, when i do run into the people unlucky enough to have witnessed our gigs (i use the term loosely stretching it into non-musical territory) i get the "i think i have heard this band... this musical monstrosity, rather... you speak of and i thought they were pathe....hey, havent i seen you somewhere before?'' look. After that, the conversation usually sags a bit and i have to make a quick getaway making a mental note to steer clear of the person henceforth. By the by, have u noticed the size of this footnote? Quite humongous. Some of my friends in college pride themselves on the size of the footnotes in their projects. Male machismo, i tell you, always obsessed about the size of this and that. But i m drifting again and i guess i should get back to the body and end the bodynote. Hey, that had a poetic timbre to it, did u feel it? Like a poignant call of the wind urging you to return home. No? Well, its just me then.) and ))) for good measure in case i forgot to close any in-bodynotes in between.

Now you have really made me lose track. Wait i have to scroll back up to see where i stopped.

Ah yes, exams. Have you ever noticed the weird ways in which time flow changes during these times of upheaval? One moment it drags along like a particularly ancient turtle on sedatives, almost going backwards; and the next it whizzes past before you can say, "what the ....". These fluctuations are most fluctuative the night before the exam. It starts out all normal-like as you sit at the table and discover books and articles in your bag you had never set eyes upon before but suddenly, without any warning, this tremendous acceleration lurches you forward through the space-time continuum and you are staring at the question paper with red rimmed, sleep deprived eyes. And then it slows down to a snails pace again so that the end seems light years away. i believe that there are scientists who have dedicated their lives to studying the whims of the perceived fourth dimension, but the going is tough. Apparently, they spend 10 years time working every single day and 10 seconds time home every single night. Time likes it little games. And you might think that the fact that every abominable attack upon free will and independent spirit, like exams, is bound to end at some point, should give us hope; but you are wrong. Its just a mirage, my friend. Lulling you into a false sense of security before the next, and possibly fatal, strike. You may not believe me and you may scorn the wisdom of my words but you do so at you peril. Just make sure you tell everyone that i warned you against it so that once you are incinerated and destroyed they realise what a fool you are and how astoundingly brilliant i am. One does not like to blow ones own trumpet and parade these victories by ones ownself. Besides i feel it is crude to rub it in gloatingly when you have been proven right and are at an advantage. Much more subtle to just smile and sigh "if only you had listened....".

Which brings me to then end of what i had to say. See. This is what i was talking about. Slow woozy ramblings and then a sudden wham! and the end. Time flies, o reader, time flies. And like everything else this is just a temporary respite. See if you survive the next surge. (Bodynote, i m really beginning to like this bodynote thing. Gives you tremendous flexibility in essaying multiple musings. Useless of course for lesser gifted individuals, whose minds run on single track thoughts, but there you are....so as i was saying, Bodynote (i have lost track of the number) No pun or innuendo of any kind is to be inferred from the last sentence).

P.S. - A prize is on offer for any person who successfully reads this entire "piece" from beginning to end and finds a common thread of thought running through it for more than five lines. Winners to be decided by a pop quiz. (PostScriptnote - note how i have mentioned the prize at the very end, so that only those who do indeed read till the end would be aware of it. Devilishly ingenious, if i say so myself. Of course, you will get some low-lifes scrolling to the bottom without reading but they will have to read it again then wouldnt they? Hah.)

And so it is..

i had...have... chicken pox. Its not because i ate chicken cooked (i use the term cooked in a broad, all-encompassing manner) over a bonfire. Nor is it due to the undeniable fact that i am a chickmagnet. [i would like to specify here that i am not responsible for these pathetic attempts at humour. These were suggested to me by people who had purpotedly called me to wish me health but had quickly moved on to cracking insenstive jokes on my condition. i recall one individual calling me an inquring in cheery tones, "How are you....(pause for effect) SPOTTY? hahahahaha". Upon my replying, in a frigid voice that i was feeling better, the tone became positively morose and disbelieving, "Really??..... (another pause) no longer POXY?hahahahaha". Laughter, therefore, is not always the best medicine.] 

Nevertheless, as i was saying before you distracted me, i had..have.. the pox and was finding time lie a bit heavy on my hands. More than usual, at least. Where earlier i would spend my eventful evenings lying around with purpose and staring at the television actively; i was doing so now with a notable lack of enthusiasm and zest. It was difficult for a personality so dynamic as mine to be cloistered in a room for days on end, whiling away the hours doing absolutely nothing. i had only been doing it for some 21 years. 

You could start a blog, a friend suggested. 

Like any normal, right thinking individual, i was shocked. Are you suggesting i work? Invest time and energy in intellectual labours? i openly admit that i ws appaled.

No, no, he hastened to clarify, eager to dispel the notion that he was one of the "do-ers" in the world. Its not work, its play. Like that fence Tom Sawyer painted. 

But i would still have to sit and type, i complained.

Yes, but think of all the rot you could write. It would be like an intensive detoxing of your brain. Clearing out all the junk. And then you could force people to read it, thus numbing their nuerons forever muhahahaha..... i suppose i should mention here that i was no longer having the conversation with my closet "do-er" friend, but with myself. i often have conversations with myself, but thats another story for another day. 

And so i thought about blogging. Normally, i dont go in much for that sort of thing. Any form of physical or intellectual exercise with only a possibilty of emotionally-satisfying gratification,  does not hold much attraction for me. The more cynical of my friends would tell you that its because i am incapable of intellectual exercise and have never had, and probably never will have, the opportunity to engage in that specific form of physical exercise that results in emotional gratification. But i often wonder, there must be some reason why so many people do it. Some people i know do it. Many people i do not know do it. Amitabh Bachchan does it. Aamir Khan does it. Pamela Anderson gets paid for it. Loads of people do it. In fact......but i should get back to talking about blogging. Where was i? Right, so i thought about blogging. And to be honest, a lot of people do it.(blog i mean, dont always be thinking about that now..) Moviestars, sportspersons, wannabes, nobodies, everybody. Mak from Mangalore to Vellarao Subramanium Hubrinath Nagarjuna Kumbunami Reddy from Venice. Everybody. And so i decided to join their ranks.

Not many people know it, but the term 'blog' has Indian origins. Its short for 'baba log', a fairly popular hindi phrase known to most Indians. And like everything Indian, it can mean many things at the same time. It may be used to refer to the young Indian generation, the 'baba log'. It may also refer to the diary entries of the more religious and spiritual minded, the 'baba log'. It may also be used as an expression of fear, laced with despair, uttered by a bengali mathematics student, upon encountering logarithm problems, the 'baba (pause) log (exclamation mark)'. Indeed, it is a concoction of all these that gives a blog its true flavour. 

It took me time to research on blogs and blogging and the fact that i am still writing this fairly pointless entry, is testament to my new-found dedication to blogging. i have discovered the magic of blogging and i shall blog. Its too late to lament now. You are all condemned. i shall blog like my life depended on it and then you will be surrounded by nonsensical, inane, absurd and senseless entries like this one. In fact, they will be progressively nonsensicaler, inaner, absurder and senselesser. i shall devote my considerable mind to ensure that. i shall work at a breathtaking pace too. Expect the next dose of vapid ramblings soon. Anytime next decade.