A Rasputin Of Sorts...

Those good old days, when I used to go to the gymnasium will not happen anymore. It is all over and done with. The present generation do not have what it takes to be a true gym rat. Couldn't blame them, 'cause going to the gym is not any like going to a club or the stadium where you played those which have so much glitz and glamour..games like cricket and tennis.

In my young days gymnasium was a place visited by the thugs, hoodlums and certainly not for anyone from a decent family background. It was a place where trouble courted, married and made love to vandalism. Anyone from a good family was not supposed to workout in a gym. Why should they, when there were more interesting and entertaining sports and games like shuttle, cricket, tennis, where you could meet up with the rich and the upperclass?

It was precisely in those settings and backdrop that I decided to join a gymnasium. My mother never knew about it until I started packing on some muscles on my 51 kg of bones and skin. If my mother and family were not ready to accept that fact, it was worse at the gymnasium. I was something the cat brought in. It was a place akin to big junction in a city, where there was a traffic block created by a few huge trucks. Big, tall guys "hung" about silently, everywhere, like ships marooned in cochin harbour. And I pranced, weaved and bobbed out of the way like a lifebuoy thrown carelessly into the water. Those guys were huge and I was a wimp, who muttered thanks to everyone who did not knock me down or trampled over me. "Hey boy, roll that 3 kg dumbell over to me. Don't try to pick it up, it could be too heavy for you. Just push it hard in my direction...yeah ..attaboy!!"

I wasn't going to take this any longer. I was going to get big and strong like those guys. It took me about two years of hardwork, a lot of heaving and puffing to get to be about 75 kg and then I thought I had learned enough to set up my own gymnasium.

And that was when this interesting incident happened.

The first person ever to join my gym was a girl. May be it was just that 75 kg of muscle was not very impressive looking or it was just that I dint have the steel in my eyes to be a true bodybuilder..but she seemed very relaxed in my presence when she said, " I would like to join your gymnasium". I had known this girl for sometime , a pretty little thing, from a well to do family and I wondered what she was doing here in my gym. My eyes flexed its muscles and swelled up in size, everytime I ran into her on the road. I would also suck in all the available oxygen in the neighbourhood and my hands would jump to the side, about a foot from the body and stay that way, as though somebody stuck a hot charcoal under my armpits, everytime her eyes met mine. And I would walk upto her [ and walk past her] like a big bull walking upto a cow. My eyes would lock onto hers and say," Babe, you must be very tired because you have been running in my mind all day long.". She was also something of a choking pain, akin to a chest congestion, in the heart of every guy in the vicinity. And here she was, wanting to join up my gym. I almost jumped up with joy, but all the laden weight of the oxygen I had just sucked in, anchored me to earth.

" I have a black belt in karate and my instructor said I had to build some more strength in the arms and legs, which is why Iam here and Iam willing work very hard, as hard as you can push me to achieve my goal." She told me. This was my golden chance to show off what I was really made of. I would run around the house for a few minutes, work up a good sweat and by the time she arrived at the gym, I would load as much weight on the bar and stand next to it as though I had just finished my workout. "Boy! you are so strong. You are so humble not to show off your strength and muscles wearing those tight T shirts". I did not tell her that if I had bulging muscles on my shoulder and chest, I wouldn't wear a shirt, ever. But she was very impressed. In fact, so impressed with me was she, that she brought in two of her friends to join up at the gym, a few days later. If she was beautiful, the other two were stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. I say, breathtaking, because I remember gasping for breath every time one of them just as much as looked at me. I found there wasn't enough oxygen for me suck in, in the gym, anymore. I was using it up like anything. " We would like to be trained the same way you train our friend" said one of them in a voice that had the effect of a cool, soothing breeze kissing my violently pounding heart. "Ok." I answered in a voice that resembled the sound of a buffalo clearing its throat.

My gym was an old, unused car shed, which had an entrance from the road and another from the house. The girls used come in from the entrance in the house. For the first two months since I started the gym, there was almost nobodyelse who joined except these girls. But what I did not know was that I was attracting the attention of the entire neighbours and even become something of a hero in their midst. It happened like this. Usually the girl who joined first, would drop by and the neighbours would see her go into the car shed. They did not know it was a gym inside, but they would see the girl coming out drenched in sweat and too weak to walk. They would also hear cries like " Venu, pls stop, I can't do it any more. No, not today...Oooh, Iam so tired, but it feels good". About half an hour later, the other beauts would sneak into the carshed and come out looking like they fell into a washing machine running at top speed. All the while, I, would go in and out the carshed without just as much as a wrinkle on my shirt. And they would say," this guy is an animal. Some kind of rasputin. Look at him!! three girls in a row and he is not even sweating. And those girls look like they have been raped by a whirlwind."

One day there was a big crash and a thudding noise outside road entrance to the gym. I rushed out to see what was happening and lo! there was another crashing sound and something heavy fell on me. It was my neighbour, a teenager, who had fallen from the roof of the car shed. And there were more, three more to be precise, on the roof. All had a certain sheepish smile on the face which resembled the grin of a monkey that bit into banana and found out that it was made of plastic. "We thought..er..ah..he..heh..". The girls had no clue as to what had happened, but I couldn't help but smile at the funny turn of events.

So many years have gone by since this incident had happened but whenever I bumped into any of those guys on the road, they would look down or the other way and avoid me altogether. And I couldn't help but break into a chuckle and wonder what those kids might have discussed about me until they found out what was happening in the car shed.