Column

My 16-year-old son recently joined a fancy gym in our neighbourhood, the kind of place where everyone looks like they stepped out of Men’s Health, and after joining he came home and said, “I think I need to buy some gym gear, you know a few shorts and T-shirts, and some other stuff that one needs to go wearing to the gym.”

So, on the first weekend we could manage, we went off to a store that stocked gym wear, played very loud music, and had the faces of football stars plastered all over its walls where we were taken to a section where T-shirts and shorts were displayed, I picked one, and asked the price. “That’s a basket ball Tee” said the salesman, “are you going to wear it for practice?”

“It’s for my son,” I replied, “I think he needs it for the gym.” So we were taken to another section, where a bouncy young man pointed out a range of T-shirts in fluorescent colours “these are for gym wear,” he said and so we bought four in different colours.

“I need shorts to go with it,” said my son. “Football, basket ball, running, walking?” asked the salesman. “Exercise shorts,” said my son, so we were taken to yet another section, and pointed to what looked like an airport hangar filled with shorts. “These are nylon, these are pre-shrunk, these are impact-resistant these are Teflon coated,” rattled off the salesman as if he were ticking off points from an engineering manual.

Then it was time to buy shoes, and for this we went to a large cavernous hall in a shopping mall which stocked more shoes than I cared to count. Shoes with stripes, shoes as fat as mattresses, shoes that looked like missiles, in every colour, shape, design. “This one’s poly-refilled, these ones are for cross training, these are bicycling racer shoes, those are for slow walking, and these are for power training.”

“He just needs a pair for the gym,” I said.

Finally, we left with a pair that looked suspiciously like it had been designed by NASA.

“Oh, I forgot the socks,” said my son. So we went back, and were led to another section where a young girl with attitude pointed airily to a wall where racks and racks of socks beckoned suggestively. “Ankle-length, knee-length, pop socks, and 100% cotton... what kind are you looking for?” “Just something he could wear to the gym,” I said. She gave me that look that’s reserved for cretins and went bopping away in time to the music to the next customer.

But socks were identified, paid for and carried out triumphantly. That was not the end of it. Wristbands, hair bands, a squirt bottle for water (a normal bottle would not do) and a strap-on cover for his iPod also had to be bought.

“Now you’re all, set to start exercising,” I said to him after the day’s purchases were finally made.

“Exercise?” he said. “After all this you expect me to exercise too?”

s_malavika@dnaindia.net