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.
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