Friends,
In my younger days, most of us had one common obsession and that was Calisthenics. I remember how as a college student I would often get hold of old issues of some popular American magazines like "Physical Culture", "Body Beautiful", "Muscle Power" etc and spend hours looking enviously at photographs of body builders like Eugene Sandow, Charles Atlas and Bernarr Fadden proudly showing off their muscular torsoes, which I would secretly long for. Alas, but, it always remained only a dream. For, though I did put myself through several different regimes of physical exercise from simple sit-ups to weight lifting, I basically remained a 'thin man' ---- until, of course, post marriage I did manage to put on some weight !
As a teenager, I was a weakling suffering constantly from frequent colds and catarrh. It was a friend of my father's client, Shri Maruti Pahilwan, a professional wrestler, who initiated me first into regular physical exercise. I had to wake up early in the morning at 5:00 a.m and go to his personal gym to perform some 400 sit-ups and 200 pull-ups everyday, while the great Pahilwan himself would enjoy his slumber merrily in a cot nearby. If I tried to cut short my workout, or even snatch a small break for myself, he would shout an angry reprimand from underneath the covers! He had several appliances in his gym like barbells and dumbbells, but he wouldn't even let me touch them, lest "those things stunt your natural growth". Later, after I had stopped going to him, I would use a pair of my own, improvised, home-made barbells to indulge in some 'weight lifting' exercises, but to not much avail. However, eventually, though I did not exactly turn out to be a he-man or a "Sandow", my general health improved considerably and by the time I was twenty, I had completely got over my frequent colds and attacks of acute asthama that I suffered from in my school days. Even today, I regularly do some mild form of free-hand exercises and Pranayam etc.
Presented here below is an old, published article of mine, "My Jogging Escapade" that I had written way back in 2003 or so. It is about an unforgettable experience I had on the very first of my jogging days. It is followed by another article, "The Woman Who Never Was" which is based on the actual experience in Paris of a celebrity, who has made a brief mention of it in his autobiography ( I have read its Marathi translation). Like always, I have amplified and dramatized the story a little bit to suit my fancy!
Bye! WISH YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY DIWALI THIS YEAR!!
Vasant Hattangadi
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