Buddhi Gautam

In front of Bir Hospital the other day, two youths with broken arms got off a taxi, and receded into the hospital moaning and wailing. Their well built muscles told me that they must have been gymnasts. Sadly, they had had a motorbike accident. Given the size of their seemingly robust muscles, which were nevertheless broken, one would even tend to think that they were ‘unbreakable!’

The coincidence was that the same day I had started going to the gym, hoping that such an activity would pump my muscles to be able to crumble bricks. My hope suffered a serious setback after witnessing those dudes in broken arms now lying like logs of wood. Good grief! How vulnerable are our bodies that get hurt and injured so easily!

I had, therefore, enough of the gym lessons even before trying out what it exactly implied! And I simply quit it. Of course, when I subscribed myself to a gym session and actually even shelled out the dues, I did not (one does not!) expect it to metamorphose me into an indestructible entity immune to any accident or disease. Neither did I expect foolishly that gym would prevent me from meeting an accident. However, building some ‘good enough’ muscles and losing some kilos were the most reasonable expectations. But the sad sight proved to be a real deterrent. Without much ado, I switched from gym to a more beneficial and less costly mode of exercise: jogging. Everyone who jogs in the jungle of cement, which is Kathmandu, for the sake of a better health may be a lot of fun. With no other options around, I preferred it to gym.

From the very beginning, I saw a concomitant benefit associated with jogging early in the morning: laughter, which is jokingly referred to as ‘internal jogging’, I guess, by health freaks. Humongous beings — men and women — jog past you lazily, with sticks in their hands to drive away dogs. Paying a particular attention to the physician’s words of caution and with jerky movements of their limbs, they move to and fro, somewhat like a clumsy dancer. I am not poking fun at them, nor am I sticking my nose in, yet I should be mischievous

enough to admit that these ‘mini islands’ who easily put baby elephants to shame when it comes to weight, helped me immensely with that process of internal jogging. The funny side of the things is that these huge ‘worms’ can be a lot of fun for early birds. The sad side is that very few appear to choose to cut down on sweets or junk food, with their girths ever increasing.