The intercultural temple of the body

I had the funniest conversation at my gym the other day. I was talking to one of my Hindu friends, a retired doctor. He has been encouraging me to try the vegetarian lunch buffet at the local International Buddhist Temple just a few blocks from my home. (Cleverly disguised as a three story office building) I told him I haven’t been feeling well, so I haven’t made the trip, but that I did make some samosa’s for dinner the other night.

Chorus: “Who had samosa?

“I made them for dinner?”

“Your wife made samosa for dinner?” (Repeat these three lines three times)

So, you made them with eggroll paper from the store?

“No I just mixed up a bit of flour and yogurt and salt for the dough, cooked up the vegetables and seasoned them”

Repeat Chorus

“You should really try the food at the Buddhist temple.”

“I am going to go the first chance I get.”

“I am sure they have very good samosa”

“I know, I love samosa, that’s why we made them at home.”

Repeat Chorus

J. and I have been going to the same gym now for 6 years. In that time the gym itself has changed owners and gone through about a dozen complete staff changes. There are only a few of us now who still brandish our original Q club cards. In that time I have made a few casual acquaintances, some lingered for a while, then disappeared, others quit the gym but maintain a cursory contact, and a few, like ourselves, seem to be permanent fixtures.

Our gym sits on an interesting crossroads, and, having been a member for so long, I have discovered that from moment to moment it is a place constantly in flux. Early in the morning, (I am told by J. who used to go before work at 6 a.m.) the place is awash with the young urban professionals, eager to get a head start on the day. Next come the septuagenarians, the Indians and the Pakistani, the soccer moms at noon, a smattering of every group in the afternoons, more business professionals from four to seven, and an assortment of people from the Asian community in the evening. (The gym turns into something of a Korean bathhouse after 9 p.m.)

Yes, our gym is awash with cultural diversity. Reflecting, for the most part, the community at large. We have sizable Asian and Indian community centers on either side of the interstate nearest our house that accounts for the large number of members from these communities. Put that in the mix with demographics of the area: married, same sex, with kids, African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, employed, retired, Russian, Jewish, Christian, Purple, Poke-a-dotted, and tattooed, and you have our gym, a little cross section of our corner of the world. Apparently, in the world of intercultural dialogue, the language of exercise is universal.

On a side note, I remember the first time I had a samosa, was at a little bakery a few blocks from the college in Cambridge. They were absolutely delicious. I’d always pick up a few for breakfast, and eat them as I walked to class. The novel nature of these little veggie filled pockets was the succulent sauce that made them so endearing. (That and the 5 shillings apiece they cost) The vapor that rose out of them as you sunk your teeth into one would fill the air and surround you and implant itself into your pores so that you would smell of cumin and coriander all day long. Compared to most of the fodder we were asked to eat in England, these were incomparably scrumptious. (This reminds me of the story of the first time I had Falafel, but that for another time)