BOOKEND Market Marketed

First-World Fanatics They've been there (the us, silly, where else) and done that. Now they are back in India working for one of the many multinationals located in Gurgaon, typically in senior management. They speak a lot about quality of life and would probably have lived in a tony South Delhi borough-in a house with driveway and lawn to boot-had the office been in Delhi. They prefer houses to flats. Wife doesn't work, although she is likely involved with some charity or NGO. Children go to school or college abroad. And their out-of-office hours are consumed by golf or causes such as art.

He has just scored a birdie on the eighteenth hole of the picturesque (and floodlit) DLF Golf Course. So, on this late Wednesday evening 37-year-old Puneet Suri exults with arms akimbo, in the best Tiger Woodsian fashion. A water-hazard reflects the floodlights and the lambent clubhouse. Retaining his triumphalist pose, and turning to the water, Suri, who has a handicap of five and is slowly acquiring a pronounced paunch gushes, "Where else can you experience such bliss?" For Suri, who runs a boutique travel agency, Beach & Woods in Gurgaon, there's nothing more relaxing than a game of night golf followed by a couple of drinks at the wood panelled, colonial style club house.

He's part of a burgeoning club of "guppies" or yuppies who've made Gurgaon-one of Delhi's three satellite cities, located 25 kilometres to its southwest, in Haryana-their home and are lending a unique cosmopolitan culture to the suburb, apart from looking down their noses at the capital.

As one drives down National Highway 8 from Delhi-an expressway is under construction-the first sight of Gurgaon is Gateway Tower, a monstrous steel-and-glass skyscraper shaped like a ship. The tower is as much a symbol of Gurgaon's growing popularity with commercial establishments as a weathervane of the satellite's unique culture. And the exodus of corporates from Delhi to Gurgaon accounts for the concentration of yuppies in the suburb. Actually, make that guppie.The guppie, unlike counterparts in Delhi or other big cities, is aesthetically kosher, yet willing to experiment. And yes, it's cool to be a guppie.

An Escapist Fantasy

Soccer Moms (And Dads) Their children-they have two, maybe more-are the centre of their universe. They are big on the family doing things together and are more likely to have pets (mostly dogs) than any other suburban type. They are also ideal customers of MUVs-as a second car. They consort with like families. Both husband and wife work (although, in some cases the wife is on an extended sabbatical). Fitness, art, reading, everything comes after Family. But they're big on annual vacations.

It takes Sushobhan Mukherjee, the 35-year-old Director of Strategic Planning at advertising agency Publicis, a good hour to get home to the plush Regency Park condominium from his office in Delhi's Greater Kailash. On some weekend mornings, Mukherjee, wife Sudha, an assistant vice president at ge, in tow drives 250 kilometers to Jaipur in his newly acquired Scorpio, just for lunch. "I can't imagine myself doing something like this if I were living in Delhi," he says. His passion for mountaineering and rock climbing often stretches the drive northwards up to the hills. With comparatively lower (than Planet Delhi) real estate costs and fewer worries about amenities like power and water, guppies can afford to spend their time and money on a whole host of recreational activities.

Gurgaon's suburban surge can be, to a large extent, attributed to the desire of the well-heeled and well travelled exec to recreate the western experience. "The place is largely an escapist fantasy, chiefly of the young professionals who have been priced out of cities like Delhi and Mumbai," says Mukherjee. And with complete power back-up, elaborate security arrangements, landscaped gardens, gyms and tennis courts, housing complexes like Regency Park are a whole world away from inverter-powered, pigeon hole apartments in other suburbs.

Half-a-kilometer down the road from Mukherjee's sanctuary, in Beverly Park, another ritzy apartment block, Ranjan Pal, a Princeton-educated, 45-year-old former Jardine Fleming Chief Economist and former Executive Director of the Indian School of Business-he now runs his own research startup Smartanalyst-is closeted with a sampling of Gurgaon's smart set to chalk out plans for the newly-formed Aravali Centre for Art and Culture. The centre is part of an 85-member strong predominantly guppie group's efforts to create a holistic urban experience by promoting classical arts and music. Pal himself is an art lover: laminated Van Gogh prints and several original paintings by lesser artists adorn the walls of his second floor abode. Pal spent some part of his working life in Mumbai and is partial to the city's smart set. Still, he will grant this much to Gurgaon: "It definitely has a buzz about it; the malls, theatres and pubs here provide a very international experience."

That's an understatement of sorts: The arterial Mehrauli-Gurgaon Road currently houses three malls, MGF's Metropolitan, DLF's City Center and Sahara Mall, each within a hailing distance of the other.

The Subrban Bon Vivants Trader- and entrepreneur-types and self-employed pros who have made it. Flashy, like things loud and larger than life. Not into pets, art, books (ha!) or fitness. Likes to entertain Faux-First-World Fanatics and Distant Dinks.

The anchor at the City Center is DT Cinema, a multiplex. The smell of freshly varnished wood permeates the air inside, and the place is swarming with mall rats. The mall also houses Mojo's, a small cavernous watering-hole that is rapidly gaining the reputation as the hottest night-spot in Gurgaon.

For the suburban sheiks of Gurgaon, the dependence on Delhi is minimal, if not altogether non-existent. "It has been more than a couple of months since I've crossed the border (to go to Delhi)," grins Sunil Jasuja, CEO of the suburb-based BPO start-up Paras Calltec. "The comfort levels here are so high that you don't have to look too far beyond."

Jasuja may be stretching the suburb's attractiveness a tad. It is close to impossible to find repairmen (think faulty telephones, pipes, or wiring) outside the self-sufficient condominiums. Multi-utility vehicles ferrying call centre agents roar through the streets, placing the life and limb of residents at risk. And for a suburb that places a strong emphasis on quality of life, healthcare facilities are surprisingly scarce.

If one were to look for the leitmotif in a guppie's life in Gurgaon, it would have to be material comfort-from air-conditioned mega malls to floodlit golf course to the landscaped greenery in condominiums. As for the guppies themselves, they are largely a homogenous lot. Still, this writer was able to spot five distinct sub-species. Try pigeonholing the guppies you know; we can't think of anything better to do on a hot Sunday afternoon.

TREADMILL

Supersetting Is there safe, drug-free way to build more muscle in a shorter period of time? Ridiculous as that may sound, there actually is: Supersetting. Not familiar with what that means? Let's begin from scratch. In conventional weight-training, exercises are done in straight sets. That is, you do three or four sets of the same exercise one after the other with short rests between each set. In each set, you do eight to twelve repetitions in a row, rest for a minute and do another set and so on. Supersetting is an advanced training technique, where two sets are performed with virtually no rest interval in between and are an excellent means of building muscle. It is convenient too, if you have less time to workout. In fact, you can superset between two body parts. For instance, you can alternate between a set of bench presses and a lat pull down to work your back and chest muscles simultaneously. But there's a downside. When you do two sets of exercises with no rest in between, it means that your ability to handle weights suffers, particularly in the second leg of the superset. So supersets aren't exactly the best method to increase strength or build power but, as most weight-trainers will tell you, supersets enable you to 'shape' your body fast. If it's that elusive V-torso you're looking for, supersets are for you. But you'll rarely see powerlifters or other sportpersons who rely on strength and power doing supersets. On the contrary, they do the opposite-take longer rest periods between sets in order to recuperate to be able to lift heavier weights in subsequent sets. But let's list the advantages of supersets. First, they let you do your exercises in a shorter period, hence saving you time. Second, they increase intensity: your muscles work more in less time. Third, because supersets cannot be done with weights as heavy as you would normally use in straight sets, they help in preventing injuries. Supersets can be done for same muscle groups (two different exercises for the chest musces, for example) or for two different muslce groups (back and chest or legs and shoulders, for instance). Many prefer to do supersets for same muscle groups but alternating between two muscle groups could help you save more time as well as give your body a more rounded workout. The other thing that I should mention about supersets is that because they don't do as much for strength and power, you shouldn't only do supersets. They could work better if you did a week of supersets in a month, assuming you exercise four days a week, and straight sets for the remaining three weeks. -MUSCLES MANI