VIRGYMS Part 4 - I got your BACK

Of all the characters we met in the gym, this guy stood out. For some inexplicable reason, his face reminded us of a typical son of a typical 80s Hindi film villain. He was tall, thin and was around twenty years old, but in many ways still looked like an adolescent. The problem wasn’t him per say. He wore the tightest and the tiniest fluorescent blue shorts while exercising. It seemed to highlight the only portion that you wouldn’t particularly like an adolescent to display. Of course, as our luck would have it, we soon learnt that his favourite exercise was sit-ups. Shetty and I did speak to him occasionally, but tried to keep our vision above his eyebrows when making conversation.

That fateful day, he casually walked up to me and said “Hey, just climb on my back, will you?” Not even bothering to wait for an answer, he even more casually walked back to where he was exercising. Shetty and I kept looking at each other. “What is with walking away after asking a question?! It’s a question right? Wait for someone to answer, won’t you? Moreover, what is with this assumption that people would be fond of climbing on your back?!” One question of his raised multiple questions in our heads. Left with no choice but to follow, I left an open mouthed-wide eyed Shetty behind to watch the proceedings. I went up to him. The fluorescence of his shorts seemed to flash right in my eyes. For some reason, his shorts seemed tighter from that distance. Curling my vision away I managed a timid and confused “What?”

“Oh, I just want some weight on my back while I do my sit-ups”, he said. I tried hard to bring out the ‘No! I won’t do it over my dead body!’ out of my mouth, but to no avail. He sat down. I wrapped my legs around his waist and my hands around his neck. There, I was on his back! With the anticipation that this will be over soon, I tried to concentrate on other things. He got up; sat down again. I was doing a good job keeping my mind away from this hideously inappropriate posture that I was exhibiting.

I don’t think the gym gods were amused enough. Now would be a good time to mention that in addition to his fluorescent blue shorts, our adolescent villain also wore a skimpy AND slippery fluorescent yellow vest. Then, the inevitable happened. I started slipping. I was panicking in my head. My only intention in life at that moment was to stay on the yellow piece of clothing and to avoid the blue one at all cost. To my astonishing disappointment, I couldn’t. I was like sand in a fist. I was fast approaching the blue territory. I was yelling inside. I was crying inside. I was dying inside. ‘This can’t be happening’, I rued. With all the courage, determination and strength I decided to crawl back up – but how? I didn’t have much space to work with. I felt my nails with my fingers. ‘What a day to cut them off!’, I thought. If only I hadn’t listened to my mom for one more day, I would have been able to lodge them into his skin and swiftly come back up. I didn’t have much time. I had to do something out of the ordinary. There was only one way out. I awkwardly jumped back up and clutched his neck with a huge jerk. I closed my eyes tightly, lest he ridiculed me. He stopped, but only for a bit before continuing his wretched sit-ups or should I say, OUR wretched sit-ups. ‘It wasn’t his first time’, I concurred. For some strange reason I liked that. That meant I wasn’t the first one. He was surprisingly comfortable with the whole thing. It was almost like he was the Rani of Jhansi and I was the frightened kid. Thankfully, after some time the war was over. I descended. He thanked me. I don’t know why, but I apologized. 

I came back to see Shetty still frozen in the same expression. Open mouth, wide eyes, staring into eternity. I stood next to him and matched his expression. We stood there for about a couple of minutes. For the first time we left the gym disillusioned. We promised ourselves that we will learn the art of saying “No”, and we will learn it soon.

VIRGYMS Part 3 - Shetty's Final Countdown

There was one thing we were never able to decipher. Without exception, this instructor, Deepak, would appear out of thin air only when Shetty was on the penultimate repetition of his last set. We never managed to figure out where he would hide before emerging at that sensitive moment. This happened, almost always during Shetty’s shoulder press exercise, for which he would have dumbbells in both hands that would have to be lifted above his shoulders at the same time. We would normally do 3 sets of 12 repetitions each. 

Shetty would be on the 11^th repetition of the 3^rd set.  His muscles would be gasping for oxygen by then. He would have already pushed himself to get to this stage. Deepak would then spring out of nowhere and start yelling “Come on! Push…. Push…. 10 more come on!!” The expression on Shetty’s face could make Crime Master Gogo cry. Changing his expression immediately and dumbbells in both hands he would try and maintain a straight face as if he is not feeling the stress at all. Very courageously he would go for the 12^th repetition. “9 more! 9 MORE! GO FOR IT YOU BASTARD!! You a little girl huh!! Are you a little girl!!?” Whether Deepak really believed in Shetty or he was just the habitual sadist, is still up for the jury to decide. So Shetty went for another one. This time however, he cut a sorry figure in front of everyone. His right hand, which was stronger, went straight up above his shoulder, whereas his left hand refused to accompany it. Even after he gave everything he could, his left hand just wouldn’t budge. If you were to see this from a distance, you would probably think Shetty was trying to give Deepak the most unfashionable high-five. Deepak would walk back with an expression as if Shetty had just dumped his sister.

VIRGYMS Part 2 - The Inner Voice

Days went by and Shetty and I got more comfortable with the gym. We started getting better at our exercise routine – by our standards. Shetty especially liked the bench press. He would enjoy it thoroughly. The moment the gym gods realised Shetty enjoyed it, they sent in Rennie - stout, 5 feet 5 inches, pimples all over the face, curly hair and thick skin. He came in with a sense of royalty and familiarity. He wasn’t new to this. He had an air of achievement. One wouldn’t give him a second look if seen on the street but when in the gym he was all authority. We glanced at him and continued our thing. 

The moment our eyes turned away, we heard embarrassingly loud groans. With every repetition of Rennie’s heavy arm curl he moaned – “Yeeeeah, yeeees!” The problem was he didn’t stop there. It went to “Oh yeeeah, oh yeeees”. Shetty couldn’t believe this public display of audio porn. I was already flaring my nostrils to cover my smile. That further egged Shetty on. He signalled that he was going outside. I followed. After about 10 minutes of uncontrollable laughter we came back, only to be greeted by louder moans. We were shocked to see that no one in the gym seemed to be bothered by it. We tried to make our peace with it, and thought we possibly found it funny because it was our “first time”. We decided to kill the laughter and continue with the exercise. Shetty got under the bench press. I was waiting behind the equipment just in case as per Kenny’s instructions. Shetty started his repetitions. 1, 2, 3…6…

“DIESEL POWER!!!!”, Rennie the sex craved tiger roared. I noticed Shetty was losing his grip. I told him to concentrate. Shetty closed his eyes and scolded himself for being amused at something completely normal. He resumed – 7, 8, 9….

“BEEYAAAATCH!!!!!” Rennie orgasmed! Shetty’s right hand paralysed. I was down on the floor, literally ROFLing. Shetty half laughing-half scared screamed “Bhat, Bhat help help”. I crawled back up to support Shetty.

“BHEEENCHOOOD!!!!!!!!” Rennie was in no mood to stop. I fell back on the ground. Shetty’s left hand paralysed. With the weight inches away from his neck, Shetty didn’t seem too bothered about his life. Even if he was, you couldn’t have noticed it on his face, which was now red with laughter.

Thankfully Rennie put his weights down, which gave us enough time to recover from our mirth-induced coma. Shetty and I together had the energy of half a man. It’s amazing how much energy laughing takes up. We clumsily managed to put the bench press in place and headed straight to the changing room. Nerves in the neck bloated up to unimaginable proportions! We didn’t think we could stop. Well, we had to. Rennie walked in.

The nerves disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared. Our colour faded to a dull red before becoming completely pale. Our tongues went dry. He didn’t look at us. He wasn’t here to wring our necks. ‘That’s a relief’, we thought. Hardly did we know then that relief comes with a shelf life. Rennie started undressing. Before we knew it, he was standing with his back in front of us. Even though we could have avoided it (which now concerns me a little bit), our eyes quickly glanced at the only piece of clothing that was covering him. The hardcore gym rhinoceros, made of steel and questionable cravings was wearing underwear that had daffy ducks all over it. Yellow and orange fluff adorned the testosterone filled clothing. We had to get out of there. Laughing in front of him could have been fatal. With our fists on our respective mouths we were out of the gym in no time. Our workout was ruined sure, but if you wanted to spot disappointment on our faces, you’d be disappointed.

VIRGYMS Part 1 - The Initiation

So Shetty and I decided to join the gym. 2 days later we were there. This was the first time we had enrolled for any such activity. Yes, we were gym virgins – and we didn’t do a good job hiding it. While Shetty was always the athlete in school and good (read: exceptional) at whichever game he took up (unless carrom and chess count), I was more the average Joe. Both of us were around 6 feet tall. We didn’t look completely out of place, our eyes did.

It wasn’t difficult to spot our very first gym instructor. This gargantuan giant, the monstrous monster introduced himself – “Hi, I am Kenny”, he said in a voice as deep as Ankit’s man-boob cleavage. Realistically speaking he was about 6 feet and 4 inches tall and maybe as broad, sported a french beard and his stance lodged him into the earth with ruthless certainty. Shetty looked at me. He noticed I was pointing towards something with my eyes. After about 5 seconds he realised there was a huge iron like pillar pointed towards him. After another 5 long seconds he realised it but obviously was Kenny’s arm offering a handshake. Shetty gave in. He raised his arm by the elbow and uncomfortably placed it in front of Kenny. Completely overshadowed by Kenny’s presence, he placed the middle portion of his arm near Kenny’s gigantic palm. Kenny mercilessly grabbed whatever was offered to him. This sort of awkwardly pulled Shetty towards Kenny. Released from his clutch, Shetty stepped back trying to decipher what just happened. It was my turn. I was prepared. I had learnt from Shetty’s mistake. I inhaled as much air as I could. I puffed up my chest. Meanwhile, Shetty was trying hard to get rid of all the jokes that suddenly popped into his head. I looked at Shetty for approval with a confident smile. Shetty in response closed his eyes and shook his head. I saw myself from the outside and it dawned on me! All the jokes that Shetty got rid of a few seconds back hopped into my head. Shoving them away, I exhaled all the air I had taken in only to realise that it really made no difference to my physique. Still, I was very much in the game. I placed my palm exactly next to Kenny’s extended arm. That would do it I thought. Kenny engulfed it with his. I thought this would be a good time to introduce myself – I am Adit… aa…aa.. an ultrasonic squeak spread around the gym. I was in pain. Serious physical pain. Kenny let go off my hand after 2 excruciating seconds and I silently thanked global warming for killing humans slowly. Shetty on the other hand thanked the beauty of relative misery. Compared to me had done extremely well!

So, we were in. Kenny explained what needed to be done, what to look out for and what not to. He gave us a chart which drew attention to our exercise routine. We were feeling more at home and were slowly getting accustomed to the equipment. The bench press, the dumbbells, the leg curls and all the works. We settled in. A week went by. We surprised ourselves by going in for 6 days at a stretch. While we were minding our own business, on the 7^th day the unthinkable happened. Kenny walked up to us. Immediately springing to attention Shetty and I thought of lifting the heaviest dumbbell which was kept on the stands, but gave up the idea for the love of our intact toes. “Come on guys. Let’s take measurements”, Kenny ordered. Wow, he is funny too, we thought. He turned back and started walking. He was serious.... he WAS serious! We had no option but to walk on his guided path with drooping shoulders. We knew what was coming. Kenny would get a measuring tape and measure our arms, chest and other such physical attributes that we weren’t particularly proud of and weren’t particularly fond of measuring. Before we knew it, we were in the changing room, which seemed like the most inappropriate place for performing this ritual. Kenny decided to shoot me down first. “Stretch your arm in front of your body with your palm facing upward”, he said. I did. Kenny wrapped up a measuring tape around my blushing bicep and wrote down 9 inches. Flex your arm he commanded. Now I had only seen people flexing their arms in movies. I got both my arms on either side and placed them at a right angle. I wanted to get the posture right. The last thing I wanted to do was look like a fool! I then flexed as hard as I could. Kenny for the first time emoted through his rock face. His eyes were filled with disgust and ridicule at the same time. In the most dry tone ever heard he questioned my move.

“What are you doing?”

“I am flexing”, I said with a strained voice as my energy was utilized in keeping my bicep bulged. Kenny held my hand with his little finger and moved it gently to its initial position. I was surprised as I thought I had positioned it quite firmly. Kenny then just bent my elbow towards my body (again, with one finger) and wrote down 9.5 inches. It couldn’t get worse than this, I thought. However it was all going to be over soon and that was my only ray of hope to live. The ray of hope soon manifested into a sting ray. “Remove your shirt” Kenny instructed. Shetty handed me a handkerchief noticing a small tear forming around the eye. He took it back as quickly on second thought as he knew he would need it soon. It now made sense to perform the ‘vastraharan’ in the changing room. And the rest as they say was human geography at its worst.