AVIJIT DAS When I look back at my training in Kuchipudi, I realise how pranayama, yoga and breathing techniques have shaped me as an artiste. The dance form, with its blend of rhythm, expression and storytelling, is demanding, requiring a dancer to align both body and mind. These practices have therefore remained a constant. Pranayama […]

It is almost 5.30am on a Sunday morning. The air is cool, the park is quiet and small groups of women begin trickling into VMRDA Park (VUDA Park). There are women in their twenties warming up alongside those in their fifties. Some tighten their shoelaces before setting off on a run, others prepare for a […]

On a weekday evening at Hyderabad Paddle Park, courts are rarely empty. By 5pm, a steady rhythm of play sets in. A plastic ball snaps across the net, paddles rise and fall, and players rotate in tight cycles of waiting and action. Pickleball, which began as a casual social sport, has found several takers in […]

Pace Her, the all-women running club meets every Sunday in Coimbatore | Photo Credit: Special arrangement When Roshini Narayanan brought up the topic of fitness with her mother Manjula, she brushed it off. “She was not comfortable working out by herself,” says Roshini, adding that a lot of women don’t step out of home for […]

There are over 60 women and one man, dressed in black athleisure of every kind, warming up on a Sunday afternoon at The Pole Camp’s ECR studio. Anusha Swamy, pole artiste and founder, is checking to see if the poles fitted across the studio floor and ceiling are in alignment. “There might be nerves, so […]

The gym is open from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. | Photo Credit: Srinath M. On Fourth Trust Link Street at Santhome in Mylapore, a piece of vacant land cheek by jowl with a Greater Chennai Corporation-run middle school was being armtwisted every day into functioning as a garbage […]

It is impossible to walk around Vyasarpadi, popularly known as the ‘mini Brazil of Chennai’, without running into a footballer. Football is not just another sport here. It is personal and, as Jayaseelan, a 44 year-old autorickshaw driver and ardent fan of former Brazilian footballer Roberto Carlos, puts it, “Football is life itself.” As Spain […]

For 39-year-old speech pathologist Nayana LR, joining the Travancore Run Club, which flagged off in December last year, was a step towards achieving “physical and mental well-being”. After dedicating the last five years to raising her two children, she decided it was time to take care of herself. Apart from alleviating stress and improving endurance, […]

Gangtok, my hometown in the Himalayan foothills, was a walker’s city when we were growing up. We went everywhere on foot. Uphill from home to school. Downhill from school to home. Downhill from home to Paljor Stadium. Knee-obliterating uphill from Paljor Stadium to town. Uphill for Mr CSP Singh’s Physics tuition classes at the crack […]

The DJ dropped the beat and 70 women started throwing punches. By the time the first kickboxing combination was called out, Moon Bar, a Visakhapatnam club had shed its weekend persona to turn into a makeshift fitness floor, with women punching, kicking, squatting and burpee-ing their way through an hour of high-energy cardio. There were […]