The Punch, the Paunch and the Googly

''You don't want to eat me. I'm too pretty to eat.''
- Johnny Bravo to Chronos the Bear in Bearly Enough Time

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“ok .. it’s a dance form right .. hmm .. begins with ‘wall’ … slow slow western types eh .. hmm .. aah .. err .. abbey kya hai yaar?” said Sajju of the Ponderous Paunch. Qamby cackled all over his coffee and I gave up on “Waltz with Bashir”.

But then again, poor Sajju can’t be faulted with this; the charades weren’t really his forte (His forte was gassing – on one occasion he claimed his Swift gave him 18 kmpl. Rumour has it this is because it runs on part petrol, part hot air which explains everything quite well). Besides, he was several schwarma rolls down as well and we had adjourned for desserts et al to the adjoining CCD, never the best of times for mental strain. (Foodie aside: Al-bake, NFC .. stud level place for schwarma rolls and tandoori chicken .. that’s only if you’re not too fastidious about ambience and such like la di da considerations).

We began to look for other methods which might yield entertainment to commonplace young men like us. That’s when I picked up Akky’s pen and administered the paunch test with flying colors, literally, well let me explain .. its like this .. you take a pen or anything of similar shape and then poke the paunch of the victim (poke the paunch eh :) .. nice ring to it .. like pin the donkey’s tail in James’ middle school fun fairs) following which the pen flies out (The poking end should be the blunt end of the pen to ensure aerodynamically friendly flight an all). Which it did in Sajju’s case, quite dramatically. Akky nearly died laughing; I found it quite mildly amusing myself. We then tried it on Akky. Good fun. Sajju commented that Akky was a special case since you didn’t need to point the pen at his paunch since he was paunchy all over. Thoroughly gross. But true, especially since he got engaged. Chances are by the time he actually gets married the better half might get the distinct impression she was committing bigamy.

All nice and comfy so far. Then the idiots decided to do the paunch test on me. After all I’d done for them across all these years. I joined the gym soon after, despite the Dilli ki sardi an all.

Gym was good fun actually. Especially if you ignore the part where the trainer grins broadly and increases running speed to 12 kmph when you are about to die after putting solid fite at 10 kmph for ten minutes. The weight training was good though; but then as a friend said once, I’m built for stability, not mobility. I quite liked the comment, am not so sure it was entirely complimentary in intent.

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PS: Its been long since I last visited the gym (wistful, memory laden, wry smile) .. I have since been shipped off to the hinterland of TN to add value and brighten up lives in general. I attempt to do my bit, aided by liberal doses of sweetness and light but the food is pure veg and the language completely Tam (repeat of wistful, sad, memory filled smile). The sambar tho' is damn good I say!