The Deep Cut

(Continued from How to be a Workout Nazi ...) "I also remember a guy during those initial days of gym. He used to go Ryan Gosling from  Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)  on us in the locker room. Although not fully nude, he would strip down to his bare minimum and do some free-hand exercises that would require lots of bending and twisting. Things, you don't want to see on your first day at gym. So, trust me when I say I braved it out there in those initial period. Trying to gel in, I stripped down myself to those shorts showing some skinny legs, lest they think I was homophobic!" The biweekly weight check and diet counselling was carried out by a professional who sits in an office at the ladies' gym. Not so surprisingly, everyone at the men's gym wants to get their weights checked all the time. After 4 weeks of working out (and two discarded, outgrown t-shirts later), I was asked to get my weight checked at the office. Little did I know, that th...

Apart from the fact that I almost fainted on the very first day of it, working out at the gym has rather been a unique experience. I've met some peculiar people there, have encountered some eccentric work-out routines and have come across some distinctive personalities not directly associated with the particular form of 'healthcare'. Sometimes, your whole life boils down to that one insane experience to write a blogpost about. In two parts, in this case. After being cajoled into obtaining a membership at the local gym, I remember to have regretted it immediately afterwards. I mean what was I thinking? Were my 'club-sandwich-for-breakfast' and 'chicken-wings-for-snacks' days over? Was I really going to commit to such self-inflicted atrocity? It certainly seemed like that at the moment. And quite unfortunately, now I had an entire family in support of my decision! Now although you'd think my physique always needed a facelift, I assure you it ...

This will be an extremely personal post, so don't go reading into it too much if you don't particularly like the sorts. Remember I warned you! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________ There are times when you feel utterly hopeless. Like whatever you have done, or are doing, would ultimately amount to nothing. That in the whole seventy plus years you've lived or would perhaps live, and all the work that you've done or would do, they would simply not matter in the end. That you would not matter. Your life wouldn't matter, like so many everyday. Your name wouldn't be remembered. You wouldn't be remembered. That however much you've tried doing things against that, you've ended up achieving nothing. How can anyone live knowing that? Yesterday I went to the market to get some eggs, 'Dada, I'll buy the entire tray. We'll be having guests tonight!' I added, w...

Everytime I go to the northern parts of the city of Calcutta, I feel like I have gone back in time on a time machine. Not that I go much. Had I known that I just had to wait for the budding art enthusiastic friend to come back home from her grad studies in New Jersey in order to be rediscovering some forgotten history of my own city, I would have had something to look forward to in the summer! The northern part of Kolkata, oops.. sorry.. of Calcutta, is that old part of the city where people from south seldom visit. Many among the youngsters today, do not know that this city was once called the 'City of Palaces' (now used, rather in reference to Mexico city) - you can see for yourself the dilapidated palaces and their decaying columns from Victorian times on your way to the Howrah station. But you've got to visit North Kolkata in order to truly establish this expression. Just a few steps north from the M.G. Road metro station, further away from the Calcutta ...

The art of Begging. To thee, I must confess, this weird interest of mine has just become an obsession. I have asked people around me for help. But they only seem to say 'Boy, you're a sadist!' or 'That's so cruel!' or 'Kaam-dhanda nai hai terku?' - that last one is a Hyderabadi friend, so the accent is perhaps understandable. But no one seems to pay enough interest to the various beggars around the country and the different styles they adopt. Most of the beggars in the country are poor, as it usually goes with the formula 'I don't have money, so I will browbeat you to give me some money until you break down with guilt.' But that doesn't seem to work in our country anymore. Being irreversibly poor just doesn't qualify. You have to have that extra 'thing' to score big money. Confused? Let me share how. Yesterday I was walking down the Theatre Road, on my way back from the US consulate. I was happy, as I just go...

Honestly, I'm a stranger to Kolkata's football culture. Right in front of my house, the giant flag of a certain country that eats, breathes, sleeps and lives football, even though a cricket ball seems to be in it's center, flutters in the breeze. And down the street, the Argentinian flag is flying higher than the Indian flag on top of the local police station. Someone somewhere has put up a statue of Messi looking down upon the adjacent statue of Dr. BC Roy as well. And after last night's match, certain idol-makers from the famous alleys of  Kumartuli , have started carving their idols for Durga Puja. Goddess Durga, looking much like a feminized Robin van Persie is slaying the demon king who resembles the Spanish goalkeeper Iker Casillas, quite   eerily . Welcome to the football World Cup season in Kolkata. The people here, don't get to follow the Euro Cup as it doesn't incorporate the playmaking styles of the abovementioned two latin American teams. S...

I have few of the finest childhood memories associated with certain movies. Movies like the 1998 Hollywood-made Godzilla, Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and a couple more associate themselves to the times of when I was a lonely kid living in a Dickensian hostel. These movies had released in the time when I was that starry-eyed little guy out to discover science fiction and some damn good animation in contemporary movies. Notice how I make it sound a little too intense? Well, so ever since I saw the trailer of the 2014 redoing of Godzilla, I've sworn upon myself to watch it within the first week of it's release. It wasn't about the stars (Brian Cranston was always supposed to do justice), or the mayhem, or the artistic improvements (Mothra became M.U.T.O. and we thank God for that), or the original interpretations dating back to the Japanese origins of Gojira either. It was for the very reason that made thi...