There are several things in life that I prefer to avoid : eggplant, skinny jeans, men in brown trousers, manicures, sports and movies starring John Abraham (in brown trousers or otherwise), to name a few. On several occasions I have had to be pliable with these preferences. With calf-length boots came skinny jeans. With a sartorially-challenged (but otherwise endearing) boyfriend came brown trousers. With money came manicures. My ineptitude at sport, however, remained a constant.
The part of the world that I am in these days, sport is almost as basal a need as air or water or cheese. More importantly, much to my dismay, I also discovered that sport is often the crux of courtship rituals here.
Sample this. Cute guy. Five minutes of flirtatious small talk.
‘Tell me, what sports do you play?’
‘Umm..none’
‘Come on, I am sure you play some sport’
‘Well, I am not really into sports’
‘Really? None at all?’ (Really wanted to say, ‘You freak of nature’)
(Feebly) ‘I play a little squash’ (Really wanted to say, ‘Umm..none’)
Never heard from him again. He probably read my mind (or an old blog entry about my encounter with sports, squash in particular).
I have a simple test for fitness in the 21st century: if you are fit and flexible enough to make babies and carry babies, you are fine. I mean what are machines for anyway – they can do the rest.
On my recent trip to India, I discovered that I fail my own test (and given the wide range of the readership of this blog, you can also guess which part). As much as I am indifferent to babies (except when I am stressed out and they have long hair), I volunteered to hold a friend’s baby while she ate. Surprisingly, the baby also warmed up to me. For precisely five minutes. Then it happened. An unmistakable sharp pang. Flesh turned to lead. Baby turned to boulder. I couldn’t hold a seven-month old for more than five minutes. I had no idea what had happened to me (Did I mention that Safeway has excellent ‘Buy one get one free’ offers on one-pound cheese bags?).
I needed to get fit. Fast.
Back in Stanford, I scouted for fitness options. Squash, swimming and golf were eliminated for various reasons. I zeroed in on ‘Body Blast and Sculpt’. The only word that made sense there was the first one. What the hell, I thought, will make for an interesting blog entry at least. Sadly, I had a heavy lunch, fell asleep and forgot to go to the first class to sign up.
Finally, I settled for the non-glamorous, non-intense, almost-familiar Yoga class. Or so I thought before the first session. Somewhere between the Exalted Warrior and Crouching Rabbit positions (did someone say Ang Lee?), I realized that Western yoga is not as calming as I had bargained for. How can you have a spiritual experience when you are muttering ‘crazy b****’ under your breath all the time?
Two days later, I can feel every muscle in my body. Heightened awareness – the joys of yoga.
I think I should just invest in strollers.
