Monday 22 August 2011

Just Anna


1.       Manmohan’s favourite song: Just Anna-ther day in Paradise
2.       If everyone insisted on wearing a “topi” correctly, there would be less number of corrupt people born.
3.       Bollywood News: Bipasha Basu is acting in a remake of a Raj Kapoor Film. It’s called Anna-ri.
4.       What fruit is yellow/green, oblong, thorny on the outside, sweet inside and wears a topi. It’s an “Anna-nas” (pineapple).
5.       Sir dard ho ya badan dard khao sirf “Anna-cin”.
6.       A new disease is affecting those in the government. It’s called AIDS – Anna immune deficiency syndrome.
7.       If you have suddenly developed weight loss, cover your head with a topi, and talk of a freedom struggle; you need not worry, it’s just a case of Anna-nitis. Symptoms last till you realise you need to earn a living.
8.       Deewar remake: “Mere paas 2G hai, adarsh hai, CWG hai, Air India hai, Sukhna hai, Tumhare paas kya hai? “Mere paas Anna hai”.
9.       First Indian on the moon: Neil Anna-strong.
10.   Indian super hero: Supermanna

Bollywood Once Again

1.       Rajnikanth’s new film: Robot Anna
2.       Anil kapoor in and as Mr. Anna
3.       Salman Khan’s latest hit, Hum aapke ke hain Anna
4.       Priyanka Chopra in Saat Anna Maaf
5.       Amitabh Bachchan says, “Rishtey mein hum tumhare Anna lagte hai, naam hai shahenshah”
6.       Shahrukh Khan is now going “My name is Anna, and I want to meet the Prime Minister”.
7. Watch Aamir Khan’s sequel “3 Annas”.

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Hygiene Jim in a Hygienic Gym

This morning as I sauntered into my gym for my at least once a week workout, a new sign on the entry door greeted me.
“Members are requested to carry their own towels on the gym floor and wipe the machines after use for hygiene reasons”.
Very interesting.
My initial thoughts were:
  1. Members were not bringing their own towels;
  2. Since they were not bringing their own towels, they were using other people’s towels;
  3. Such people using other peoples used towels were wiping machines
  4. And therefore it is unhygienic for the machines.
Now that may make sense but let’s get to the root of all this.
It is very common for someone to say and for someone to hear someone saying “I am going to the Gym to sweat it out”.  And a Gym is a place where, well, you will sweat if you are exercising. And you will also sweat when you see the “oh so well shaped” women tone their butts while sticking their chest out.
So then it is quite established that you sweat in a gym and you go to the gym to sweat and deliberately if one must say. So where does the hygiene factor come into play in all this.
In a gym kit the most common items will be shorts/pants, shirt, shoes and socks, and yes a towel to wipe your sweat. So as a prudent person, you will don your gym clothes and exercise and as you do so, you will wipe the watery excretions from your skin commonly called as sweat. But as a prudent person will you also use the same towel to wipe the seat of the exer-cycle on which you have been resting your posterior for the last 20 minutes and which earlier carried the behind of someone else. How hygienic is that?
If you wipe the seat as mentioned above with your own sweat filled towel, you would not be wiping the sweat of the seat but only spreading it over a wider area. And this is what most gyms want you to do. Spread the Sweat is the message. Your fellow gym mate waiting to take over the machine once you are done also expects it from you. The snooty woman with a body that will make a hippo look starved will give you a sharp “Excuse me but you have not wiped the back and seat of this machine” shout as if you just left a trail of loosies.
Is there a solution to this? Well, yes and no.
For those who watch the floor cleaner adverts very carefully, you will notice that a micro-scope will show some worm like bacteria/viruses wriggling and squiggling. A second later one wipe of the so called highly potent floor cleaner will eliminate all leaving one or two surviving. What is being displayed is not the fact that the surviving ones had been inoculated but the fact that only 99 % of the bacteria/viruses have been eliminated. Moral of the story, there will never be 100 % hygiene.
So goes for the Gym story. Other than having a janitor standing alongside every machine with cleaning solution and wipes, this problem is going nowhere and here to stay. Though the other solution being sticking super absorbent pads on your hind and back or having throwaway covers.
Friends, let us be good to each other. Please wear clothes and exercise. Your risk of catching some rash will only be greater if you are working out naked. Though there will be enough people to ogle at your risk taking capacity but only if you are a super model otherwise spare a thought for the poor blokes around you. Don’t be a pig.
Happy gyming and happy wiping.
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