Evolution of man

The Must Make It Professional is the most obvious of this lot. Over the years his eager I-must-please-the-boss unctuousness weathers like good whisky into an expanded sense of I-am-the-boss complacency. Two broad goals drive this man the desire to become a CEO before 35 and the chairman of the board before 55. Incidental markers like club memberships, fancy cars and luxury holidays help him, along with the antacids and aspirins, to cope with the inevitable frustrations and reversals that could mark his progress.

Since existence for this individual begins and ends in his office swivel chair, real life — as in soiled nappies, children with measles, homework andshopping for vegetables — doesn’t really sully him. Employing pcspeak, he laughs, “She is the care giver. That’s her department!”

The Iron Man is also a fairly ubiquitous specimen of liberalised urban India, what with every other basement being converted into a gym. Mr Body Beautiful would prefer to have his own personal outfit, but in its absence, he pumps iron at the local Biceps & Triceps with a religious fervour bordering on the obsessional.

This single-minded pursuit of a washboard-like solar plexus began some time in infancy, with his parents having made the cardinal mistake of once having dressed him up as Mr Universe for a fancy dress party and cooing about how cute he looked in his costume. A subsequent diet of World Wrestling Federation television tourneys and Sylvester Stallone movies saw him on course to a life exclusively devoted to sweating it out in a Reebok tracksuit.

If Mr Body Beautiful calibrates his calories, The Universal Gastronome has only contempt for such a mealy-mouthedexistence. The massive outcrop that is his belly is his insignia. He bears it with all the pride that ancient Spanish galleons did their banners.

The pursuit of pleasure in this case began early too. When still a tender child, his mother and grandmother tried to outdo each other by stuffing their ladla with kajus, barfis, chocolates and bucketfuls of ice-cream. For years, his mother took great personal delight in the fact that whenever Mrs Chopra down the road came across her son, she would pinch his rather swollen cheeks and pronounce, “Arrey, he is so healthy.”

Forty years later, his wife keeps whining, “Just look how unhealthy you are. Why don’t you watch your weight?” But here is a long-distance runner who has broken the psychological cholesterol barrier, even as he can spend hours regaling guests about the pleasures of lobsters grilled with garlic in snail butter and served just so at Chez Justin.

This takes us to the last of the great categories of the PIG — the Lively Loverboy who graduatesinto the Aging Adonis as time passes. Marriage and a flourishing brood of children do not, normally, diminish this individual’s ardour (“My wife doesn’t understand me” is his usual opening gambit, “If Bill Clinton can do it, why can’t I?” is his defence).

As a young man, he may sometimes find that his purse cannot keep up with his libidinal drive. Age brings with it the necessary income and social status in fact, there is nothing quite as sexually alluring as power and an unlimited expense account. It is then that this type really comes into his own. With his hair carefully arranged to conceal any thinning regions on the crown and with a paunch held in, he sallies forth into the world looking for the naive or the lonely.