How We Work Out

The pneumatic gent in this picture is wearing the head of Vinod Khanna, a Hindi film star whose heyday was the 1970's. (I don't think Vinod Khanna's body ever really looked like this.) I wondered why a Tamil gym would use the face of a Hindi star; then I realised that at the time this gym was probably opened, the Tamil stars were far from muscular -- most were actually pudgy. Things are different today, but still, the Southern film industry has more tolerance than the Northern one for a range of body types and faces.

(update: Sennoma informs me that the body under Vinod Khanna's face actually belongs to Arnold Schwarzenegger -- and I didn't think it looked human!)

Just around the corner from this old-fashioned gym is one of the new variety:

Quite a few glitzy new gyms have sprung up lately, geared for the young and prosperous.

I like to imagine the men of Anand Gym (I'm sure there are no women there), lifting heavy barbells or swinging Indian clubs in a hot room, striving earnestly for that puffed-up look, oblivious to the siren-call of air-conditioning, and exercise machines, and aerobics, and juice bars. Though they probably can't afford any of that.