 | | Working Out: Working out at a gym with an instructor can be quite a nightmare |
He’s all of five feet two inches tall in his air pumped sneakers. But he’s all bulging, testosteroned, steely muscle. And right now, he’s got this sadistic expression on his face, even as his triceps or pectorals or clavicles or whatever it is they call them, ripple menacingly as he snakes towards me.
My instincts kick in. And I look frantically for the nearest exit only to discover that I’m up against a blank wall.
I peer around feverishly for help. For a Samaritan, who will step in between this ogre and me. For anyone who will aid me in warding off this lethal maniac.
But everyone is busy with his or her own routine. Oblivious to my hapless, choked-off screams for an SOS.
And then Santosh unleashes himself on me. “Come on! No resting!” he snarls. “What man, add some more weights, what you’re lifting is for a weakling!” he sneers.
In some mad, wild and unguarded moment, I signed up for a personal trainer at the gym down the road. I had visions of walking into a club in 28-inch waist denims and a tee that had 28 size biceps bursting at the seams.
Right now, two weeks into working out with Santosh, all I dearly yearn for, is to go back into my blissful slobby state. When the alarm doesn’t shrill me into a world of pounding, grunting men. And when I didn’t have to drag my sorry carcass onto a treadmill that, well, treads faster than my racing, unused-to-exercise pulse.
One day, I did try shutting off my alarm, and turning over for some uninterrupted quality time communing with my eiderdown pillow. But 10 minutes into the comfortable silence I was sharing, there was a pounding on my door.
And who do I see standing outside, but the face of my nightmares! Ready to drag me all the way to that hellhole chamber of torture.
Every time I move a muscle now, it screams in agony. Together, muscles I had never even been introduced to, make a cacophony of shrill protest.
Every time I sneak a guilty bite into a rich, luscious chocolate bar, I look around furtively to see whether Santosh has slimed in to snatch those hard-earned calories away from me. Every time, someone asks me out for a beer, I imagine myself pushing an extra 10 pounds the next morning — and I shake my head regretfully.
From my drowning world, I have only one message for all you lucky people out there: Go sip that extra lager. Buy that choco-drenched, sinful dessert. And stay true to the solidarity of overweight, paunchy happy people.
You’ll never know what you’re missing. Until you have a Santosh in your life.
I’ve got to run now (well, not run, more hobble). Got to catch my eight hours before I go back to the Iron Curtain. | 
