Fitness First and Last

It has been just over a year now that we have been members of Fitness First. When we were first made aware that it was to open within walking distance of our residence, the excitement was palpable. Ever since we had moved our residence, going to the India Club gym was tedious. It meant a long drive and frustratingly often, a wasted trip, due to the lack of parking space or the sudden closure of facilities due to some festival.

We continue to be members of India Club as the facilities are quite good and to top it off, I personally used to feel like a King (and probably behave like a snob) in the gym there. Indians will be Indians and our dislike for exertion is only exceeded by our love for food. There is something in the Indian psyche that frowns on pushing physical frontiers. We definitely do 'not' want to go where no man has gone before.  Barring a few, for most members the gym is a place to socialize and more than that the reason to indulge themselves the next day. The treadmills are ideal locations to swap recipes and to salivate over the prospect of an upcoming meal. You know the type I am talking about – the ones who would leave the gym and head straight for a McDonalds (or in this case a Thali).     

It was fantastic for my ego ‘and’ my motivation, when from my self-perceived lofty position I saw lessor mortals floundering around me. I used to love showing off my push-ups and lunges, and I felt I was the paragon of fluidity on the machines. I prided myself over the fact that I would be dripping with sweat, while other members would gently dab away a few beads of perspiration from their brows. For me every drop of sweat was a testament to my pursuit for physical perfection! Of course (being an Indian myself) that pursuit somehow crashed into a dead-end daily at the dinner table.

Hence I lived under the misconception that I was at the top end of the fitness pyramid! Little was I to know how good the India Club had been for my morale and how soon my hubris was to be vaporized after stepping through the Fitness First portal.

Being a cosmopolitan gym, it has been both a revelation and a downer. From the very start I realised that I would have to redefine what fitness meant. Most of the members there seem to be professional athletes, and the rest infinitely fitter than me. The range and type of programs and equipment available is huge. I have suddenly been thrust into the world of TRX, Purmotion and Bosu Balls and having always prided myself on my fitness it has been quite a shock to suddenly find myself at the bottom end of the spectrum.

It is not uncommon to see people doing seemingly impossible feats – from runners to bodybuilders; gymnasts to parkour; boxing to yoga; the gym is full of people who have attained priesthood worshipping at the altar of physical fitness. And I have suddenly been relegated to becoming a neophyte. So I slink in and out discreetly and very surreptitiously use equipment which is not too popular. I try to train in corners or next to “Indian looking” members in the hope that I do not look physically challenged by comparison.


I try to avoid the eyes of the Personal Trainers hovering around, because as opposed to the ones in India Club, these guys look like they know what they are doing. When they observe you training, you feel like they are minutely scrutinizing every movement and defragmenting it skeptically. In the India club, barring doing something that required you to be stretchered out, the instructors, in the true tradition of Indian democracy, gave you enough freedom to inflict permanent muscular and skeletal injury on yourself.  

Now I go to the India Club once in a while when my ego has been severely bruised and is in need of a boost. On other days I walk around like a yokel through the maze of machines at Fitness First. I barely break a sweat on the Elliptical and then gravitate to the free weights section to pass the time, while I look at other members who seem to be training for the Olympics.

And as I leave the gym I salivate at the prospect of a good dinner, while rationalizing in my mind the forthcoming overindulgence.