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I was just another regular middle-class guy from a business family from Chandigarh,with an MBA degree,a short work stint and a girlfriend. Just another guy with another girl problem. Broke up and got depressed. Some get drunk,I went to the gym. And then came the drugs. In perfect harmony with Steppenwolfs words: You know,Ive seen a lot of people walkin round with tombstones in their eyes/ But the pusher dont care/Ah,if you live or if you die/God damn,The Pusher.

This trade is about big bucks. A 12-week cycle of steroids can cost around Rs 35,000. Add to that protein supplements which cost Rs 12,000,vitamins another Rs 2,000 and gym membership fee. In Chandigarh,the pusher is on every street corner selling steroids,and even delivering them to your doorstep,if you like.

Chandigarh has a gym in almost every sector. Most of the big names in fitness are here,and thriving. So are the trainers,who advocate the use of steroids to customers,mostly young people who are eager to try the roids,despite knowing about their side effects.

Kunal and his wife,Rashmi,are physiotherapists and one of Chandigarhs many gym rats. Fit and chiselled,Kunal has been on anabolic steroids,fat burners,and protein supplements for the past 10 years. Rashmi injects him with testosterone and other roids. They know the risks but arent bothered. They fuss over food and depend on drugs for results. Despite their lifestyle,they are planning a family.

Perfection is a slippery slope. Ask Naina,a college student. Shes pretty and a bit overweight. Her peers,fed on a visual diet of MTV and fashion magazines,rib her with such endearments as fatty,biggy and dhanno. She hopes to change that with fat-burners,low-carb diets and two-hour-a-day workouts. But while swallowing a pill is easy,discipline is tough. So,she starts a diet,and slips. She goes to the gym for five days in a row,and then the frequency plummets to two days a week.

Fat burners,on the other hand,are easy to deal with. Just pop them. They can be cruel; they make her pee all the time. But by god,they work, she says. They also accelerate her metabolism. She hasnt slept for days. Shes always on the edge and is likely to damage her kidneys if she keeps popping ephedrine,caffeine and aspirin for a long time. Shes been on them for six months already.

Another cocktail is being mixed at a posh gym. Three jocks crowd into a loo. They come from affluent families and drive around in Audis,BMWs and Hayabusas. One of them has just imported a growth hormone from Canada and is shooting it into his thighs. Thighs are the bugbear of Indian bodybuilders,and the growth hormone promises miracles. The trio,though,injects it into different parts of their bodies. The drug is new,and its side-effects unknown. But for the boys in the toilet,thats not a concern. Its as normal as importing Rs 3,000-a kilo beef steaks from the West. Beefs taboo in their community and so are growth hormones. Big deal.

A new gym language is developing. Terms like roids,size,burners,cycles,and supplements which are normally familiar to body-builders are being adopted by regular gym-goers. Young men look up to professional body-builders as representatives of the macho sub-culture of motorbikes,tattoos and sports cars,and want to look and feel like them. On the other hand,women want to be skinny,like the glamourous women they see on the screen.

It takes time for the poison to take root. When it does,men suffer infertility,gynecomastia breast development,shrinking of the testicles and reduction in sperm count. Its worse and often irreversible for women,as their bodies are introduced to unnatural hormones. They experience enlargement of the clitoris,excessive growth of body hair,uterine atrophy,menstrual irregularities,deepening of voice,and decrease in breast size. Even as women take steroids for the perfect figure,they may end up developing manly physical traits, says a trainer in Chandigarh.

As for me,I did experience occasional bursts of aggression and adrenalin rushes. I lost hair and a lot of weight. And that helped me get my self-esteem back. But I havent gymmed or used steroids for the last few months,and would hesitate before using them again.

Some users claim roids are addictive. And some dont. I believe they are not. It is the effects that their use brings about that are addictive. Looking good and feeling good has become an obsession and it is this obsession that is addictive. Whether this addiction is good or bad is subjective. Society has ever-changing benchmarks of perfection,and how we want to achieve them is up to us. Some would kill themselves for it.

Some names have been changed on request