What is the best exercise for a person to keep himself fit. This question always worries everyone. The people have become fitness conscience to live a healthy life so long their soul/life continues attached to their body. It is this urge that makes a person to adopt several methods to keep his body fit enough to run around, if not fit like a fiddle.
When a person is young, doing exercises does not in any way affect his movement on the next day of doing the exercises. Older they become, they feel cramps in the legs or pain in the body etc. When I was young I remember having run or as it is called nowadays as jogging round an open space which is near my house. Early in the morning by about 4.15 a.m. before I could see any one in that place I used to start running round the open space. At least I used to take non-stop four rounds of the open place. The experience was exhilarating. It was no doubt tiring. One would sweat like as it is said in idiomatic language ‘ sweat like a pig ‘. But it was keeping oneself very elated and happy throughout the day. Body used to be very active. I was doing that religiously.
My running exercise had come to the notice of many of my clients perhaps it had become the talk of my circle of friends and clients. Incidentally, let me add here that I am a practicing attorney. This I am mentioning here because one day when I was about to start running I saw one person coming towards me. It was scary since it was still dark. The open place was not properly lit. . One could recognize people with the help of street lights. This person came towards me and asked me to stop. I started sweating not because of the exercises which in fact I had not yet started, it was because I thought there was danger waiting for me. I knew that I had no enemies but one would not know though it is always believed that the lawyers have no sides and they plead for the side which engages him. He is like a fish in the water as he is not affected by the facts of the case since he has to speak for his client. It is like first come first served. If his opposite side had come first he would have pleaded for him. Therefore it is of no use taking on the lawyer just because he pleads for his opponent. Be that as it may, here this person asked me to stop. I did not know what to do. There was no one around that place except a police sentry guarding the police station which was about 100 yards from that place. I gathered all my strength and asked him not disturb me, but he said that he was waiting for me at that place from about midnight as there was a big fight in their house about property matter and that they had decided to consult me. I said whatever it be, he should not have disturbed while I had come there to do my exercises. But what amused me was his next sentence. He said that several people knew that I was coming to that place early in the morning and if he had waited for me there he could get an appointment and meet me in my office thereafter. Hence he came there. I have narrated this incident to show that in those days, I had set a pattern and timing for exercise. I considered it very important and I felt that was the best exercise a person should do to keep fit like a walking stick!
But now there are several other opinions about this mode of keeping fit. It is said that instead of running one should jog and some say, one should walk fast, some say, it is okay if one walks briskly. But perhaps due to want of open spaces in cities some people buy treadmills or walkers so that they can do these exercises indoors whenever they have free time. Even in walkers or treadmills, there are several varieties. Therefore there is no dearth for equipments for people to keep themselves fit. What is now needed is the intention or interest to keep oneself healthy.
As I said that how far these exercises help one to live long is not for the people to decide. Because “future’s not ours to see, Que sera sera, what will be will beâ€. We all know this song made famous by Doris Day in the film ‘The man who knew too much’. Birth and Death are not in the hands of the mortals. It happens as per some invisible written orders of an invisible hand whom we call by various names. I am saying so as I can recollect about one of my friends who wanted to keep his body free of any diseases and hence he was checking himself once a month by a General Medical Practitioner and used to maintain a book for his reference wherein all the medical reports were kept and everything was done meticulously. He would walk whenever he could avoid a vehicle. He would climb the staircase instead of using the lift. In fact he was proud of his carefulness and I used to admire him. But the invisible hand and the invisible order made his soul to leave the body in an unfortunate motor vehicle accident when he was visiting the head of a religious group in a temple. A sad incident and it ought not to have happened. But all precautions did not help him.
I do not want to draw any moral from this incident nor I say against doing physical exercises. But I think exercises are necessary so that whenever be the last call, he or she should be fit physically and should not become a burden to anyone. That is why exercises are necessary for everyone, whether it is running, jogging or on treadmill or walker etc.