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Health
mania
Fitness is the hot
new fad in Chennai
By Methil
Renuka
Time
was when fat was virtue in Chennai. A measure of the good life. When
fabulously flabby heroines filled up the big screen. When a gloriously
rotund J. Jayalalitha lugged lard with aplomb into viewers' hearts. Cut to
now. Leggy belles are not just the figment of the dream factories of
Chennai's film district Kodambakkam. The sinuously slim Aishwarya Rai,
Tabu, Pooja Batra and Shilpa Shetty, if anything, have helped accelerate
the city's pick-up speed on the treadmill. Fat's been shed for fitness,
inhibition for overall nirvana. Laughs yesteryear celluloid queen
Vyjayanthimala Bali: "Today, filmgoers would balk at bulk. Even the
men have more biceps than they did before."
At 58, Asha Devi, salt-and-pepper-haired, bubbly, is an incurable health
freak. The only time she's short of breath is when she's elaborating on
fitness. When she's not holidaying with her grandchildren, you can be sure
she's enjoying a swim, a drink, or a game of squash at the Madras Cricket
Club. Or simply pepping up on the treadmill. At a steady 68 kg for
four-five years now, she's convinced the weighing scales will never turn
against her. Chitralekha Ramachandran, a 44-year-old zoology lecturer at
Chennai's Stella Maris College, manages to grab an hour at the aerobics
centre every day, in between home, family and work. But weight reduction's
not the only thing on her mind. "Housewives are more prone to health
problems and domestic pressures, you know," she rues. "Which is
why a lot of us are walking into gyms."
Maybe that explains why over 50 per cent of choreographer Jeffery Vardon's
students at Chennai's Hot Shoe Dance Company are over 40. When the school
was started three years ago, he had only teeny-boppers signing up. Today,
jazz, tango, funk and tap dancing apart, Vardon sets aside one hour every
evening for what he calls "dancercise" (dance for fitness)
classes, and the number of 40-plus students is shooting up.
So Chennai's fighting the bulge. If body sculpting was the preserve of the
upper crust, the city today has a new fitness brigade going strong in its
urban middle. "The fad is cutting across people from all walks of
life. The beach, private lanes, parks are always full of walkers,"
offers Bhuvaneshwari Shankar, chief consultant dietician, Apollo
Hospitals, Chennai. For the climbing classes, it's a question of the
latest gym, the latest imported fitness gadget. The health spa at
Chennai's Ambassador Pallava hotel for one has seen an increase of 100
members in the past year alone, a flattering figure for the steep price of
Rs 24,000 a year for aerobics classes. Swimming classes are also hot at
the hotel. Maya Unnikrishnan, the spa's chief executive, recalls how when
she had moved from Mumbai and enrolled as an aerobics instructor at a city
college, she had students, professors, even nuns enthusiastically working
out with her on the hot terrace of the college in cycling shorts, tights
and tees. What's more, home gyms, costing anywhere from Rs 1.5-5 lakh, are
in. Says Pankaj Nanda, coordinator, Gympac Fitness Systems, an exclusive
distributor of Precor, USA, in south India: "Our sales figures for
the south almost went up 100 per cent in the last year.'' Here's another:
Southern India, particularly Tamil Nadu, has the largest number of health
food drinkers in the country. As per org-marg figures from the Indian
Market '98 survey, Tamil Nadu's consumption of milk food drinks was 18 per
cent against the national average of 7.5 per cent. N. Balachandran, gm,
Health 'n' Glow, a health and beauty store with outlets in Chennai,
Bangalore and now Pune, swears that diet biscuits, diet jams, slimming
tonics, soya products, and artificial sweeteners sell like hot cakes.
"There is a growing health consciousness among the middle class. Add
to that a host of non-prescription products from reputed manufacturers
that people can consume on their own."
Physician and diet specialist Dr Tusna Park's appointment chart is packed
with patients coming to her Chennai clinic from as far as Trichy, people
with annual incomes below Rs 60,000; about 50 per cent of them are
housewives between the ages of 30 and 60. "The south consumes a lot
of rice. And flab-inducing carbohydrates in turn. The old south Indian
Brahmin tradition of eating two meals a day -- brunch and dinner -- should
not have been done away with," she says. In a way, Chennai's economic
resurgence and new attitude brought with it the caloric frills: a surfeit
of restaurants, eclectic cuisine. So pizzas fill in for dosas, Coke for
coffee. But then, salad bars are also in. It's no longer retrograde to say
you're vegetarian. Chennai is even set to have its first "diet
restaurant". Office hours are being religiously sacrificed for
working out and gyms are open as late as 10 p.m.
The old bathroom scales are being lugged out of the closet. Fashion
designer Julie Varughese smirks: "People want to slink into better,
more fitting clothes, because of the images they see on TV, and thanks to
so much more designer wear happening." Arjan Kripal Singh, 27, a
regular at the Madras Cricket Club gym recalls how working out in a gym
was strictly a no-no for orthodox Tamil womenfolk even five years ago.
"Today, they have no qualms about stretching out in skimpy shorts.''
Singh attributes it to the TELLY, and the increasing sports
telecasts.
The metro is teeming with examples. When 37-year-old hausfrau Nafees Zain
opened an aerobics centre to firm up after her third delivery, it was
because she thought it made sense "to make money and keep fit at the
same time". To most, like Lissy Priyadarshan, 33, wife of director
Priyadarshan and mother of two, exercise is the best way to pamper
oneself. "It's worth all the sweat when somebody compliments you on
the way you look.'' When she's not lifted the day's quota of weights, it's
as if "I've not had a bath or something". She's not alone.
Bigger pockets, greater awareness, smaller waistlines ... it's all
happening in Chennai.
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