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Tales From The Locker Room

The scene starts with Park Hyatt, Goa. Yesterday, was the happiest day of my life. And it was not because my dad agreed to pay for my hair transplant, or because my wife agreed to move out. In fact, an even more joyful event occurred.

As I entered the hotel gym, I saw a large set of sacks on the floor. Then an amazing thing occurred. The large set of sacks asked me, “Are you the gym instructor?”

It’s not everyday that a collection of sacks would ask this of me. Pleasure filled my body. All those years of people poking fun at the extra dhoklas, the surplus samosas and the cardinal sin of consuming one more thepla, were washed away with that comment.

One can compare that feeling to the one a 42- year-old woman feels when she’s mistaken for being 34, only magnified five and a half times more.

Then the sacks got up and stood on the smallest blue yoga mat I’ve ever seen. As I tried to deal with my euphoria, (by this time I was doing my flamingos and hopping through hoops of fire dance), the sacks started to form some shape. First I thought it was a gigantic fish bowl, but finally before me stood the largest woman in the world.

As she raised her massive arms, she blanked out Panjim. Then in a flurry of activity she struck a new yogic posture, which later I realized was a slow deliberate walk, a style she had mastered ever since she realised she had a far greater gravitational force pulling at her than at most buildings.

Each thunderous thigh made a movement forward, followed by a guttural sound of effort, which started at her stomach and then quite obviously got lost as there was so much of it.

However, I couldn’t resist as I had to feel ecstasy again. So I asked, “Beg your pardon ma’am, are you the gym instructor?”