Nerves of Steel

Arun Datar walks in to the gymnasium standing tall and straight,and holds his hand out with a gentle smile.

Arun Datar walks in to the gymnasium standing tall and straight,and holds his hand out with a gentle smile. It’s hard to tell how old he is; his greying hair and toned,well-built physique cut a contrasting picture. Datar is in fact almost 70,although he doesn’t let age get in the way of physical fitness as he trains daily at Surya Gymnasium owned and run by him – on Senapati Bapat Road. Since he first discovered his love for exercising at age ten,Datar has never let anything stop him from keeping fit and healthy not even a road accident he met 40 years ago.

I was riding my motorcycle and a bus crashed into it. For two years,I was bed-ridden and had to undergo several painful surgeries and treatment to fix all the fractures and infection and other complications, he says. Datar,who had been weight-lifting and bodybuilding for several years since college,was told by his doctors that his fitness has played a major role in his survival after the horrific accident.

Motivated by the doctor’s statement and by his wife’s suggestions,two years after the accident Datar decided to open his own gym. Formerly a marketing professional,Datar’s days began to revolve around his passion for bodybuilding,weight-lifting and general fitness. After the accident,I had lost around 92 lbs. Slowly,over the years,I’ve recovered and now I weigh around 140 lbs,a good number for anyone my age and height, says Datar proudly. He lifts weights,does push ups,practises suryanamaskar and skips just as easily as any of the younger people who visit the gym. I can skip 190 times per minute and between my 64 th and 66 th birthdays,I completed 65,000 sets of suryanamaskar, he says.

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His passion for pushing limits often motivates other gym members to work harder and developing their own fitness. Amongst those that Datar coaches,there are some who have taken this common passion to even greater heights,competing at national and even international level weight-lifting and bodybuilding events. Mahesh Hagvane for instance,has won the Mr India title twice and went on to win a bronze medal at the Mr Universe contest last year. Priyanka Sawant,another star pupil,won three gold medals at the Asian Power-lifting championship some years back.

His remarkable journey from the accident and his two years in recovery have been recorded faithfully by his wife,Arati Datar in a book titled Shunyatun Suryakade’,launched on October 25. Datar,who has also completed a PhD study on ‘Iron Games’ or weight-lifting,was also awarded the Krida Jeevan Gaurav Puraskar,a lifetime achivement award by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan and Advocate Nagarkar Foundation on October 17.

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