gold's gym, my former anti-intellectual outlet

this is a post that i was meaning to write back in october, and i've only now just now remembered that i need to post. i joined gold's gym, to my own astonishment, back in the fall. normally i would not have joined a gym filled with the kind of people who frequent that particular gym. not to be a snob, but in my op it's a haven for anti-intellectuals and a meat market for people who don’t think so critically about the world in general. now that i’ve left the gym and have moved on to a better, cheaper place (and within walking distance to my new flat), i must take the opp to divulge some of my experiences there.

why did i join that particular gym, my friends ask. well, it came down to these factors. first, you cannot run in this city without risking your own life. it is a developing country, after all, so the sidewalks in this vicinity are either non-existent, torn up for repair, or occupied with squatters and/or weavers weaving baskets. so there's the option to run in the street, which is an option only if you would like to risk getting run over by the constant flow of bombay traffic.

secondly, even if i did have a sidewalk in this neighbourhood, i could not run in my running gear. you see, women cannot really show much leg, midriff, or skin in general in india, esp. if you're white! (so i have to do that privately: in a gym where people who are rich enough to understand that i'm not advertising myself when i wear a sports bra.) finally, the other gyms, with their outdated and/or broken equipment, did not meet my standards. so i was spending around $55 u.s. a month...a hell of a lot, for india... at gold's. and might i add: these people are the most high-may ppl i've ever seen in my entire life. esp the women.

just a quick snapshot of the typical female gym-goer at gold's: she exits her suv at the front door, dropped by her driver. over the shoulder is a huge patent leather gucci handbag with gold chain straps. she’s wearing peep-toed jimmy choo stilettos, with pearly silver manicured nails. she’s hot: has huge boobs, tiny waist, face totally made up and hair done in a ponytail by a stylist for the gym. she is speaking vacuous parle on a diamond-encrusted phone. you know what i mean. i’ve never, ever seen so many women like this in one place at one time. these women are married to oil magnates, or bollywood stars, or ARE bollywood stars, or inherited all their money from their wealthy gujarati fathers when they passed away. bottom line: it's all about how you look and what you have, hon.

so the women were superhot. the men looked good and had great bodies. i recognised quite a few from bollywood movie adverts and t.v. but i couldn’t handle all the pageantry, especially after working with kids from the slums every day (and it really IS a big circus, a place to see and be seen). i would just go in there, not make eye contact, head directly upstairs to the treadmill, run 6 to 8 k, and then row for 15 minutes. i avoided any type of interaction b-c i didn’t wanna become part of that elitist attitude. and believe me, i could have reveled in it. b-c it would have been major bonus points for many of those people to chat or associate with me, a westerner.

i'm not saying that i must belong to a gym for intellectuals. all i can say is that i had a very interesting experience, at least from an observer's perspective, on that very far spectrum of india's tax bracket.