The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
Finding Jane Fonda, under water
FOR A long time, the clubhouse in my society had been trying to sell me a session of aqua workouts over the weekend. Though we have an Olympic-sized pool, come Saturday, it resembles the Mara river full of jostling wildebeest as each and every resident dives in, determined to shed their weekly woes and the calories they couldn’t get rid off with 10,000 steps. I certainly couldn’t be conned into getting kicked and punched around under water.
To her credit, the club manager did sell her water sports rather deftly. “It is a lowimpact drill,” she said, which is nothing but a euphemism for “it’s meant for older people like you.” The truth hurts but fact is the exercises you give up at the gym as a 50pluswomanwithaplus-sizedbodycanbe done easily under water without feeling pressure on your joints or muscles. Since you are buoyant, the floaty feeling eases your limbs and helps them move fluid-like, smoother than they would on land. That’s why squats, which might hurt and stress your knees on land, are doable in water, as are aerobics.
The last time I had a tryst with aerobics was as a late 80s’ teen practising on Jane Fonda home videos. Fonda herself continues a sedate version of her aerobics at 85, while I have trouble doing Zumba. Could I do aerobics again?
That’s when Ranjana aunty, all lean and taut at 70 and a one-time state-level champion swimmer, decided to end all self-doubt and inhibitions that I might have harboured. Flexing her might as a senior citizen, she bargained with the club manager and arranged for a pool divider from one of her older swimming clubs. “I will get you students provided you rope us off at the deep end for an hour on Saturdays,” she said.
Deal struck, our weekend classes began with Aman the instructor and Ranjana aunty, the underwater Fonda, all spunk in a striped pink swimsuit. He gave us the science: “The resistance of the water is about 14 per cent more than on the surface. So if you do cardio exercises in water, you’re working your muscles more.” She made it fun, encouraging us to do jumping jacks as we bobbed up and down, splashing water on the parapet and pool chairs, flapping and flailing our arms in circles, like geese waiting to fly. Science or not, the jumps pumped up our endorphins and made us giggle, a motley group of women between 50 and 75, rediscovering a moment worth living in the middle of a dreary day.
Ranjana aunty has lost her husband to autoimmune disease, is an empty nester and lonely. Yet there is such peace writ on her face when she floats face up, letting her body go. I now love jogging end to end under water, springing up and down, with the toes barely touching the pool floor. Aman has helped me improvise spot jogs, twisting my waist each side to strengthen my core. I love it because it reminds me of dancing. There’s Seema, a school teacher who has seen rough days after her husband’s business failed to take off and is looking to find her equilibrium. She cycles her legs with her back against the pool wall, hands on the parapet, sometimes kicking the water sideways, letting her rage ripple away.
None of us are great swimmers but hopping, jumping and splashing together have made us challenge our physical and mental limits. Even the stentorian Aman now allows us to break rules and be ourselves, often devising a routine according to individual preference. One of the ladies has got her daughter’s boom box so that we can do aerobics exactly the way we did in the 80s to disco beats. The water has not restored our youth, which we mistakenly attribute to our chronological age, just reminded us of its spirit. Fact is youth is a state of being that’s preserved by the choices we make. The water has just washed away every excuse we women make to deny ourselves the right to unalloyed fun. The guilt of ageism is really on us.