Through much of my life, I’ve been the rotund, nerdy kid with very little interest in physical activity. So when my little cousin badgered me to come to the gym he had started in Kolkata, I surprised myself for agreeing. He’d left an MBA life to become an entrepreneur in fitness, starting his own functional training studio – what a gym that’s gone to college is called. So I figured he knew what he was doing when he coached me. Plus, I’d had a very stressful year. The physical effort would be calming, I thought.
And it was.
Four months after I started, “we go jim” – an ironically misspelt meme that emphasises fitness as a solution to modern stresses – has become a regular part of my day. An unexpected silver lining: I am now highly knowledgeable about the latest Punjabi rap music, since it is all my gym in Delhi plays. More to the point: I have picked up all sorts of new things, from the names of our basic muscle groups to recipes to cook up enough protein.
I am, of course, still very much a beginner, with a long way to go, fitness wise. Be that as it may, I immensely enjoy the zen calm that spending an hour in the gym brings. I can leave behind my work as a journalist, personal life and whatever else, and just make sure I deadlift, squat or bench enough plates to failure.
It’s an odd thing for a geek like me to say, but bizarrely enough, it’s the gym that made me smile in 2022.