Casus belli

 

Potbellies grow and stay forever, the realisation dawns on you rather late. Initially you tend to ignore it, thinking it is just an irritant and will simply disappear by itself. This rotund growth which surreptitiously appeared and decided to hang on despite my best efforts to shake it off. The long brisk walks and exercises graduated to Yogic asanas which left my torso quite contorted but could not make even a dent in the belly which seemed to be relishing these activities and mocking my efforts. I was also consoling myself, I am in my 50s now, a little bit of fat around the waist adds grace and so on. Then came the acceptance, more so, since right from the time I was a kid, my mother was always concerned about my skinny appearance and encouraged me to eat well. This motherly affection which is centred on the stomach is a universal phenomena across the length and breadth of the country and knows no caste, religion, region culture or language barriers. A legacy which we all can be justifiably proud of, that at least there is unanimity in one key aspect of our lives, so whether we have a Uniform Civil Code or not we have a Uniform Feeding Code for Mother India.

 Old habits die hard ... one always yearned for the flat stomach which one was justifiably proud of, after all in uniform, this protrusion was always frowned upon and rightly so. The only saving grace was, my weight continued to be in the permissible 10 percent underweight from the prescribed weight for my age and height. The Body Mass Index (BMI) was perfect just 22.5. 

Over the last four decades and more that I have been in uniform, which includes nine years stint in RIMC, NDA and IMA, I have stretched my limbs to the extreme limit, so have most others of my ilk, but I dare say that I happen to be amongst the chosen ones, having broken more number of bones, torn more ligaments and gone under the surgeon’s scalpel on a number of occasions. Most of the time due to my own exuberance and stupidity(Carry on Doctors (https://senseinthenonsense.blogspot.com/search?q=carry+on+doctors). I always believed in getting on the field rather than sticking to the drab gym, till this pandemic hit us and the Delhi pollution left me with no choice but to explore this option. A captive gym with a trainer to boot, what more can one ask for?

Lo and behold, I started off on my gym regimen under the watchful eyes of the trainer hoping to firstly address all my nagging pains in the knees, ankles, shoulders etc with adequate muscles to support these rather fragile joints, before Osteoporosis sets in.

Cometh the hour cometh the man… so here I was Arnold Schwarzenegger wannabe on my way towards six packs. In the academies we never kept an account of the number of packs, the only packs we recall were the Pack 08 or the Chindit Pack (The Chindits, known officially as the Long Range Penetration Groups, were special-operations units of the British and Indian armies which saw action in 1943–1944 during the Burma Campaign of World War II- Wikipedia). We had the double , triple or on a rare occasion even a four/five packs Bajri( Construction sand) Order(filled) or RRCO (Riding rig Chindit Order), but these had nothing to do with the abs.

soldier in chindit order

I was greeted by these perfectly chiselled hunks from Haryana who had each of their muscles in their perfect shape, as though these Adonises were modelling for an Anatomy class for the medical school.  I was advised a quick rehab for the creaking joints to set course for more strenuous exercises ahead. Here I presumed I would be like Sly Stallone with "Eye of the Tiger" playing in the background or may be the desi "Tu Bhag Milkha!" , but the Haryana connection naturally was more inclined to "Kaisi dhakad" and "Dangal dangal". Reconciled to the wrestling akhada(arena) beats even the TV played only WWF further reminding you of the path ahead. 

But then I am what I am, so here too I stretched it to the point when the joints simply refused to entertain or even indulge me, I was reminded of Munna Bhai in that Sanjay Dutt movie “Munna Bhai MBBS” when he mentions that he was not even aware there are 206 types of bones which can be broken. All the muscles and ligaments about whose existence I was blissfully ignorant suddenly erupted and made their presence felt. The pain though was well worth the effort, I was feeling more energetic and raring to get back on the Squash/Tennis courts, which I was missing badly. But the casus belli the "belly" proved to be a tough customer like the Delhi Belly, refusing to yield an inch. I haven't thrown in the towel as yet.....may be the belly will gradually!