Gym 1.31

27th Jan 2012: Friday - Ben's aerobics class.....

Sat, Sun skipped days of gym....

Gym 1.30

Jan 23rd 2012: Monday - went did a lot of different things regarding cardio and threw in some Toning as well...

Tuesday - Skipped

Jan 25th 2012: Wednesday - Ben's Katabox

Thursday - Skipped :/

Ahh cooling down of tempers and a very imp lesson learnt

OK after my prev outburst, I am saner now... Wee bit better ... nothing more... Its hard to get rid of that all weirdly cynical feeling of complete loathe... BUT I improved my mood... started reading "Illusions" by Richard Bach to get all my positive vibes back... hmmm...

The thing I learn while dealing with people is ... the faster you insulate yourself... the faster you learn to neutralize your feelings - without letting go of your actual nature and a tad bit aggression - the better-off you are. 

I shall now start counting days till I would need to re-boot and re-read positive vibe emitting books... try to meditate etc etc.... some things just take time to percolate into me.

My growing cynicism

Eh! The levels of my cynicism is multiplying every single day. I have stopped relating to sooo many people... its not funny! :/ I know I tend to be critical and take tensions generally be a shade 'roll my eyes' sort of person everyday... but this current bout of absolute hate, loathe and lack of trust is... staying... 1 month now... huh! I have reason one-too-many....

1. People are 'BORING'.... umm.. showy... self-centered, ill-mannered....

2. Everybody is bothered with everybody else.... I mean "Mind your own biz" should be a subject in school    really.

3. Negativity is contagious ... IT AFFECTS MEEEEEEEEEEE 

4. I hate people preaching to me.

5. I hate being instructed.

6. I am stuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk .... From a country with numerous modes of transportation to one that has none (or something you can spot rarely) - this place is a foot-and-casual-searching-and-roamer-around-ers nightmare.... 

7. I have too many utterly obnoxious, rude relatives and acquaintances.... (should it really be bothering me?! hmm...)

:( .... jeez I have a huge list. ... Writing it down seems to me as a affirmation for the feeling itself to stick around more.... AAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

'Looking Down Ones Nose' at people....

I wanted to mention this in my post about "Maximum City - Bombay lost and found" review that I wrote some days ago, but eventually forgot as I got caught in the mode of mentioning whats in the book itself.

In there, while reading the book I realized how many of the criminals and bar girls mention how and when they started doing what they are doing... why? what was the origin?  - The consistent answer was more or less on these lines: Person is poor and/or from a low social class... life presents the person with woes, ill health, loss of parents, siblings getting killed by someone else, loss of money, loss of job, loss of self-esteem ... and the person in panic goes to the finer sense of the general public for help... pleads for something ... wants help or else is looking at imminent doom or loss of something very special or dear. And what does the 'finer' sense of public do? .... Its anybody's guess... We look DOWN on them, its not our duty, its not our head-ache, we feel 'oh what a pain'.. 'oh what riff-raff'... its a general sense of immediately looking down on such people as pests... and closing our doors on them. 

I am not saying that I as an individual or my family as my close people, have also never done that to anybody - in all probability we have - and the price to pay have never been worth it. 

These people who need help and don't get it, more or less develop a sense of 'injustice' and lots of anger. They then lose their sense of right, wrong, society and in general their own thinking of justice - coz they never did get any from anybody. As we all remember people who stand by us, in our worst times - so do they..... And since, nobody did, they like to join groups that inflict some form of 'revenge' - bomb blasts, killings, rapes etc. I am pretty sure, when they are caught or punished they feel no remorse at their deeds. I mean, they never did receive any justice to start with to understand it completely. 

I think this goes for countries, tribes - how they treat each other and whether they 'look down' on other communities, religions etc.... In my understanding, its the starting point to a lot of vices...  Perhaps, when we look down at someone again on the roads, in our everyday lives - a slight modification can actually be a slight change - for good!

Gym 1.29

19th Jan 2012: Thursday - Compensated for missed gym on Tuesday - with a strong cardio session. The aim being maintaining atleast 4 days a week gym routine. 

20th Jan 2012: Friday - Ben's aerobics class at Virgin Active... some new faces in the group and the usual no-more-than-courtesy-smile attitude of the general public... (sigh, I miss the chatty friends at my aerobics class in Delhi, India - everyday a huge BIG smile on everybody's face there!!)... nevertheless, Ben's enthusiasm is worth everything and the vibe of the whole class energizes me as well! :)  - Group classes are always fun!

Gym 1.28

18th Jan 2012: Tuesday - Slept late on Mon and got up late Tue and everything seemed to look 3/4 times itself... so zzzzzz'd and skipped gym. :P

19th Jan 2012: Wednesday - I have instant guilt in-built... so woke up and ran to class - attended Ben's 'Katabox'.

"Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found" By Suketu Mehta

 My last read was called "Maximum City - Bombay Lost and Found" by an NRI (Non-resident Indian) author who spent some of his childhood and formative years in the financial capital of India i.e. Mumbai (erstwhile Bombay) and most of his young - adult life in New York. This is his narrative on how he tries to find familiarity with a city he left as a kid and tries to relate to it in its current state.

I love that city as some of my best years' at the start of my employed life and away from my parents started there - and even though it rapes your pocket off money and your mind off peace - it still enriches you with experience not paralleled in any similar city in India. Hence reading and understand the city with the author seemed extra special to me and I could hardly put the book down. 

The author meets all kinds of people who inhabit the city and circumstances you find yourselves in if you live there - from Gangsters, policemen, Prostitutes/ Bar-dancers/ call-girls, normal slum dwellers, political workers, ministers, an everyday financial market worker, hard-working normal people (ignorant), the famous local train and its idiosyncrasies, the mad rush to everywhere, the hyper-posh filthy-rich people, the bunch that makes up Bollywood - actors, directors, financiers (seems it includes a lot of under-world money), what all is right with the city and of course, what really makes the city wrong as well. 

A lot of it is a reflection of India as a totality, but foremost in my head is the clarity on Gangsters and gang-wars and the staged 'encounters' by the police to kill these outlaws. This bit, I agree didn't end with a feel-good factor as violence is never good - and the line between right and wrong - law and an out-law is very thin and rather feeble.

On the other extreme the book also mentions the story of a rich diamond trader who along with his family of teenage kids and wife - decide to leave the city life with its modernity and give away all their wealth and possessions and wander off into a life of begging - a life which shuns all material possessions. Pretty difficult that - even to attempt for a month (for me personally as I could think of it). How a city can push people to extremes and be an extreme on its own in lieu of its inhabitants, makes up what was for me a bloody good read!

Gym 1.27

13th Jan 2012, Friday: A day of full-blown aerobics cum toning at Ben's class.

Sat & Sun  - 14th and 15th Jan 2012: Self-declared rest days :D

16th Jan 2012, Monday: Self-routine of cardio - stepper, bike, arm-cycle (donno what its technically called), cross-trainer, rowing, some weight training for quads and tread-mill - all in 1 n 1/2 hour. Now that I listed it here, it sounds like too much but didn't seem like that for sure! 

Gym 1.26

12th Jan 2012:  I declare it a Rest-Day for gym today, coz I went 3 days non-stop and a break for a day is not a bad idea I think. :) Maybe some meditation and Yoga is a good idea, that I intend to do.

Gym 1.25

11th Jan 2012: Wednesday meaning Ben's Katabox class attended :D, and the lady at the reception of the gym said it 'looks like' I have lost weight :D... (BIGGG FOOLISH GRIN).... umm I know that's not really true, so I wiped that off and proceeded with my drone-ish existence. 

Someday.... :D

Gym 1.24

10th Jan 2012: Ben's Step-class... after a longish break and i discovered what crappy stamina I possess. BUT its a matter of routine perhaps. Maybe the next Tuesday class would be better aye! :)

Gym 1.23

7th Jan 2012: Cardio day again.
8th Jan 2012: Yoga and general Sunday laziness... 
9th Jan 2012: A 1:1/2 hour power cardio session along with limited toning exercises - especially the quads for the knee.... I have started very very verrrryyyy slow jog on the tread-mill... least my right knee start paining again. Some physio for it helped. How weird, the bone alignment is something I would not have even though about had this not started as a problem issue.

Year 2012 and my Gym 1.22

Aah I wish everybody a very Happy and Prosperous 2012!! :)  ... New Years' is such a farce aye... the dating system is man-made.. the AC and BC is speculative and shoved down the throats of generations who are happily following things blindly - I don't mean to say that we are all wrong ... I just mean that there was no year '0' or '1' and nobody knows anything about it - just segregation of BC and AD . Some random day they started dating things ... 'back' and 'henceforth' kinds. So well... anywho - conventions being questioned is never a bad thing. But as a matter of keeping time and repetitiveness - I hope the forthcoming repetition of 12 measured months is fruitful, beneficial and sensible to one and all! :D

I have decided to keep things even more simple than they already are. And I have also decided to do more of things in my head than to follow anything ever instructed/expected/ forced/anticipated of me. Not that anybody is sitting on my head right now.... But sometimes society pushes everybody in the direction of mounting expectations. Well, I am simply going to turn a blind-eye to that specific part and be slightly more 'Outlier-ish' (umm ... might be off the chart kinds... coz I never was in-line to start with :P). 

So post this New Year rambling I shall narrate my (now seemingly repetitive) gym routine. :D Halleluiah! 

OK 31st Dec 2011 - 3rd Jan 2012: I yawned, gt happy for New Years', lazed, contemplated... but did no exercising. 

4th Jan 2012: Just when the start seemed bleak... I went for an evening session of cardio.

5th Jan 2012: Cardio again.. morning session .. mixed with some toning for the legs. Came back , did Yoga (breathing exercises + sun-salutation)... and say 10 min of meditation (even 2 min of meditation is sometimes pretty tough for fidgety people like me).