Kamal Ghorui
8am: After 20-odd years of yoga, I’ve started lifting weights. This whole personal trainer business baffles me. I invite someone home, offer him tea, and then pay him to torture me.‘Come on, give me 60 Russian twists,’ he says, handing me a 4 kg weight.
‘Is there a neutral name for this?’ I ask, ‘You know, these days even health comes with a dose of ideology. Look at Namita Thapar of Shark Tank fame. She posted a video saying namaz has health benefits and resembles a few yoga poses. The outrage caused her company’s share price to drop. If I post a video doing these Russian twists, what if Ukraine takes it personally?’
He responds by making me do two sets of Romanian deadlifts. ‘What are these exercises you are making me do — Russian twist, French press, American kettlebell swing?’ I ask him, ‘Next, instead of Jumping Jacks, you will tell me to do The Strait of Hormuz. Open and close repeatedly. I feel like instead of working out, I’m negotiating trade agreements. Let’s find terms without national, religious or ideological references. You never know when someone gets offended and wants to do a Pawanmuktasana all over your X timeline. Oh, I have to find a new term for that pose too now, don’t I?’
10am: Sipping coffee and scrolling Instagram, I see posts about a woman who has gone viral for screaming at a minister for blocking traffic with his rally. Ironically, the rally was about the delay in implementing the Women’s Reservation Bill. While women across the country wait to get more seats at the parliamentary table, this Mumbaikar got out of the backseat of her car, huffed, puffed, and blew an entire rally down.
1pm: Global warming and hot flushes have ensured I spend my days in linen dresses and shorts. I am following a new hack to lower blood sugar by walking for ten minutes after each meal. Since it’s sweltering outside, I start marching on the spot in my khaki shorts. I may look like a newly recruited member of the RSS, but that doesn’t bother me. After a few minutes, I watch ‘Toaster’ to alleviate my boredom. The movie begins with Rajkummar Rao, who plays a miser. He reminds me of my metabolism, which saves every calorie and stores it in a pouch around my stomach for future use. Then I see a cameo by Patralekha, the film’s producer, who has recently been trolled for gaining weight. When a woman has produced a movie and a child simultaneously, I think we should all be focusing on her abilities rather than her appearance.
Society does seem to have a grudge against overweight people. I was talking to a friend on Mounjaro whose weight loss stopped after 5 kilos. ‘I think it was fake stuff because I just read about a big scam in Gurugram where counterfeit Mounjaro worth Rs 56 lakh was seized!’
‘It’s really wrong,’ I say, ‘Those who are making fake drugs should at least use them for social activism. Take on colourism. Replace glutathione drips that people use to get fairer skin with plain saline. Why is the scam economy against fat people? They should go after the genetically blessed skinny ones.’
3pm: My sister calls and asks what I am doing. ‘I am reading a graphic novel about quantum mechanics,’ I tell her. ‘I would love to understand more about the topic, but the closest I’ve gotten is when I went to Karan Johar’s house.’
‘He discussed quantum physics with you?’
I laugh, ‘No, but he lives opposite a building called Quantum Park.’
She sighs, ‘Your jokes really suck.’
We then talk about the woman who stopped the rally and the Women’s Reservation Bill. ‘The bill reserving 33% of seats for women was passed earlier, but with the condition that it would only be implemented after delimitation and a census,’ I tell her, ‘While everyone argues about seats per state, women’s rights are still on a waitlist. Come to think of it, the bill could work as a quantum physics experiment. Officially alive and functionally dead at the same time. You remember Schrödinger’s cat, where the animal is placed in a sealed box and is considered both alive and dead until observed. Schrödinger could have used the bill instead of a cat, and he wouldn’t even need to put it in a box.’
‘Wow, you’ve been reading a lot,’ my sister says. I don’t tell her the only reason I know this is because I accidentally clicked on Barkha Dutt’s Instagram story while watching unboxing videos.
7pm: Every night, after dinner, I kneel with my legs folded under me and then sit back on my heels. A posture familiar across multiple cultures. Earlier, I would call it vajrasana, but in my new quest for neutral terms, I have renamed it Orthopedic Knee Hold.
Shakespeare was wrong when he said, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’ Replace rose with pose and get ready for outrage. When it’s time for me to march on the spot again, I pull out my phone and check my Amazon account. I had ordered a book for my daughter, and it says it’s out for delivery with three options: track it, get it sooner, or update my address. Maybe Amazon should handle the Women’s Reservation Bill. It’s been out for delivery since 2023 and is still stuck in traffic behind yet another political rally.
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