Inaugurating the treadmill

This morning provided one of these interesting moments when the curtain parts just a bit and I get to remind myself that I am in fact, somewhere else entirely.

My latest means of countering the fact that my office, my apartment, and the places where I eat are all within three minutes of each other, and everything outside that bubble involves lots of honking traffic, hence activities other than sitting in a chair or walking back and forth along the seaface or in the open area between the atrium and the auditorium tend to be limited has been (appropriately enough for India) some yoga in the morning. At first I was doing this on my own up on the roof of Jagdish, but then I learned from Costis that the sign on the bulletin board proclaiming "Gents Yoga Class, 7:30-8:30 AM" did in fact refer to something extant. It isn't really a class at all, but there is a guy who comes in every other week to provide a list of poses and some guidance. Other than Costis and I there is only one other young guy there, and he's on some totally other scheme of exercises. There are two other guys who come in, but they are older and seem to be following specifically prescribed regimens such as staring at a candle for twenty minutes and then doing some yogic breathing/snorting for a while.

So this morning, our yoga-wallah came in and asked us to come join him in the other room where the weight machines are for an "inauguration". What was to be inaugurated was a new treadmill. In contrast to the existing treadmill, this one is set up looking out the window, so that those who prefer to walk in place using a machine can stand on the second floor and look out and see what they are missing rather than be tucked into a corner under the stairs and stare at a wall. I guess that during the rainy season it can be nice to take a walk indoors, but I generally don't see the point. Anyway, when we came into the room, the Star-Trek-esque control panel was draped with a garland of orange flowers, and our friend had a couple sticks of incense burning. One of the men present was given a dry coconut, which he cracked open on a dumbbell. Some sweets were passed out and the guy who cracked the coconut tried out the new machine.

(The sweets were of the extremely sweetened pistachio flavored compressed milk product variety, and however good it may sound, it isn't, and I had to cut out of yoga early because the thought of suddenly ejecting that little blob of sugar with last night's dinner in tow while standing on my head was all too present.)

Apparently this equipment inauguration thing happens every so often. On telling this story I heard about a little bit of drama that came about when someone in the (string) theory group got a new piece of office furniture and deemed it necessary to acknowledge this fact. It seems that some more secular members of the department found the sanctifying of an office chair or filing cabinet rather offensive and there was a little bit of tension for a while. I'm certainly ignorant of much of the associated baggage, but as a ritual to acknowledge gratitude for getting a new thing, I thought it was pretty neat. I suppose it isn't all that unlike cutting a ribbon on a new bridge, just on a much smaller scale.