|
 RAHUL
BOSE IS GETTING READY FOR THE SEVEN-KILOMETRE DREAM
RUN AT THE MUMBAI MARATHON. HE'S RUNNING FOR AKSHARA,
WHICH MEANS HE'S HELPING SOCIETY AND HAVING FUN
Rahul Bose is not fit, he wants you to know. He's put
on four kilos for Buddhadeb Dasgupta's new film for
which he has been a shooting star in the East.
Getting fat was tough.
Tough?
"Every body is a machine. Even accumulating rust
is a process that takes time. I had to spend some weeks
doing absolutely nothing, just eating. And then the
fat began to accumulate around my middle. Women get
fat around the hips, men around the middle."
But then came a shoot for Khalid Mohamed's film, in
which he plays a cosmopolitan South Mumbai boy who plays
rugby and is super-fit.
"Which means I had to lose the four kilos in a
week. And I was in Orissa where there's nothing. You
can't even run because you'll fall over something in
the road. So for the first time in my life I dieted.
I ate only protein, and I did manage to lose two-and-a-half
kilos. I think I still have about a kilo and a half
spare right now."
They don't show.
Rahul Bose, as far back as I can remember-from the wild
days of A Mouthful of Sky through English August and
on to Split Wide Open and Everybody Says I'm Fine and
Mr & Mrs Iyer-has gone from being fit to being superfit
and then back to fit again. But it isn't about his career
at all, he says.
"There are two kinds of fit people: there are those
who look like they've become fit by just being out there,
doing stuff they liked and acquired a natural fitness.
That's someone like Mohmmed Kaif. And there are those
who have a groomed fitness, which includes all these
young filmstars."
I cast a look of some surprise over the veins running
thick in his forearms. That can't all be out-in-the-open-stuff.
"I'm blessed with a naturally charged metabolism
and thin skin-or something like that-which makes me
show definition easily. But if you check the records
of the gym at the Bombay Gym and I go nowhere else,
you'll see I hardly go there-maybe two weeks before
I have a big match."
The last time I saw him, his pectoral muscles were in
full form, dominating the room. Today, he looks like
he's back in proportion. (But that could be my envy
of his super-charged metabolism at work.)
Now he's got to get into shape for the Mumbai Marathon
in which he will be doing the Dream Run, seven kilometres.
"I started running because there comes a time in
your life when you want to be alone. I do not exercise
because I am stressed. I exercise because I like it;
and when I want to be alone, I run. I believe Nike got
it perfectly right with their campaign about putting
on your running shoes and taking off. That's what running
is about. I've run in almost every city in the world.
In London, in the winter. In Toronto, where one road
is warm and the next is a wind-tunnel from the Arctic;
in Colombo and in Mumbai."
These seven kilometres will be run for charity. The
charity in question is Akshara which tries to combat
gender discrimination, the communal divide; and to spread
sex education and awareness about AIDS.
"I have been working with them for seven months
now. My role is to stir things up, to try and force
them to think. I work with a group of about 80 young
Muslim women who come from poor families. To be poor,
female and Muslim seems like a tough break but contrary
to what you might expect, it's more about being poor
and female than it is about being Muslim that is the
obstacle. My role is to challenge them to think, to
stir things up. When they asked if I would run for them,
it was a no-brainer. I enjoy my work with Akshara; I
do not do it out of some sense of obligation. I would
be unhappy if it were taken away from me. I see it as
a long-term commitment."
This involves getting a group of them to play rugby.
"It's about two teams facing each other and about
passing the ball backwards, basically, right? You have
to get the ball to the other side but you can only pass
it backwards. Sounds easy, right? But if you don't get
it right, if the person to whom you pass does not cross
the line at which you are the ball doesn't get anywhere
closer to the other line. And I told them, that's the
way your life is. If you aren't going to be support
systems for each other, you don't get to the other side."
All of which means that the Dream Run marries his concerns
and his enjoyment of physical activity perfectly.
"What's the downside? If they want me to do something
physical that helps, could there be anything better?"
And the marathon is important, he maintains, for more
than just the serotonin it will release.
"It's about people getting out of the house at
7:30 am in the morning, ready to run. It's about how
they cheer the runners and not the celebrities. It's
about a grand gesture made by a city. I don't buy all
that "and-then-Mumbai-rose-as-one" but there
is something to this sense of doing something good.
And running is good. You see a couple of guys running,
you run along with them for a while. Children do it
all the time. There's a good feeling to committing yourself
to something like that."
Rahul
Bose's Tips for a Fitness Routine
 "Exercise
should be a subset of fun."
I have always been the kind of guy for whom sports was
fun. In school, in college, I also hung out with guys
like that. For us fun was getting up a scratch team
and playing something. Girls came later, much later.
Even when I holiday in Goa, it's about touch rugby or
beach volleyball. Perhaps it is a generational thing.
My father didn't ever exercise after the age of eighteen.
I do it all the time. These young guys all go to gyms.
"Between
the ground and you, there's nothing you need."
Most of my exercise routine is free-hand. The exception
to this is when I'm practising for a rugby game. That's
when I go to the gym and do some machine work for my
shoulders, lower back, quadriceps and arms. The lower
back is the most important because all the work is done
from there. And when I'm playing for the national rugby
side, then things get different. That's an entirely
different ball game, another story involving six-hour
practice sessions and gym training in addition."
"Biceps?
What use are they?"
Whether you look at them anthropologically or sociologically,
the biceps don't do much work. On a construction site
or in a village, you will never see anyone with great
biceps. But you will see a back in which every muscle
is defined, you will see great calf muscles, you will
see well-developed shoulders, great triceps. And yes,
when you're exercising the first time in a gym, there's
always the temptation to do your biceps because you
think women are looking at them. But when women say,
"Great arms", they generally mean great triceps
with adequate biceps.
"Eat
what you like and it will be of greater benefit to you
than eating what you have been told is healthy."
My Ayurved gave me that piece of advice. I have been
practising Ayurveda for almost ten years now, part of
my dislike for the invasiveness and aggressiveness of
allopathy. I think the Indian diet is probably the most
balanced in the world and the one that suits us best.
"I stretch to prevent injury."
My routine is 45 minutes to an hour before a game, which
includes the normal stretching as well as short jogs,
a little running on the spot. Before a workout, I stretch
20 minutes to half an hour. After either a game or a
workout, 10 minutes or so.
"Abdominal exercises are a way of life."
Every man ought to know that; every man probably does;
every man doesn't want to think about it. I always end
any workout with abdominal exercises.
"The fit body is the relaxed body."
Yes, fitness is about cardiovascular fitness and about
strength and about flexibility. But yoga has taught
me that it is about having a relaxed body that is ready
and primed for action, which can bounce back from minor
injuries and which can endure.
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