The Bentley: A sure-fire (ha!) status symbol

Heard of curiosity killing the car-owner? well, the man who bought the first Bentley sold in India, sure thinks so. He operates one of India's largest tanker-truck fleets and is based (where else?) in Delhi, but refused to speak or be photographed for the story. Reason: fears that D-company would target him for their next extortion play. We're flattered that he thinks the family reads Business Today but hey, isn't the car itself enough advertisement of his status on the mean streets of Delhi?

-Kushan Mitra

The new Lancer: Too little, too late

New Wine, Old Bottle

After years of dilly-dallying, mitsubishi has finally updated the Lancer. Unfortunately, this is a case of too little, very late. Lancer sales, destroyed by the entry of the Optra, Corolla and Octavia, expect a fillip with the refined new 1.8-litre, 120 horsepower engine. But the dated styling lets the car down badly.

Even though the handling and ride are still brilliant, the new automatic transmission is lethargic and needs to shifted into 'pseudo-manual' mode if you want to vroom into the sunset. At Rs 8.95 lakh, economics is also against this car.

New wine can get you high, but the taste always leaves a bit to be desired.

-Kushan Mitra

Mumbai Marathon: A heady show

Mumbai Marathon: The Last Word

Given this magazine's frequency, this surely won't be the first report you read on the Mumbai Marathon. Hopefully, it'll be the last.

I'd originally started this composition with a story about Pheidippides and the Battle of Marathon, but a mean-spirited editor cut it out (Insert from mean-spirited editor: the boy obviously doesn't know a chestnut; it would have been a different story had he started off with how the current distance of the marathon, 26 miles and 385 yards was set at the London Olympics of 1908, so that the race could begin at Windsor Castle and end in front of the Royal Box). So, here go some sanitised numbers that you hopefully haven't read anywhere else.

-Dipayan Baishya

HEALTH NOTES

40 Plus? So What?

There's a machine that the instructors at my gym call the "Hammer" (in reality that's the brand name of the equipment), which is a contraption that allows you to do seated chest presses using a lever mechanism. You load the weight bars; sit with your back straight against the back-rest and legs firmly on the ground; grasp two handles and push your arms out. The advantage of the "Hammer" (pictured alongside) is that besides the pectoralis major (that's the slab of chest muscle) it's also effective in building strong anterior deltoids (the front of your shoulders). But that's not the point of this column.

In my gym, the guy who can press the most weight on the "Hammer" is a 56-year-old self-effacing man who we call Uncle Superdude. Just to give you a quick idea of what I'm talking about, in his last set on the seated bench press, US loads the bars with two 30 kg plates and proceeds to squeeze at least 10 reps out of them. Anyone who's done seated bench presses on a Hammer machine will know how much tougher they are than ordinary presses that you do lying down on a bench. But US is an extraordinary guy. Up until his early thirties, he was a relatively active, outdoorsy kind of guy. Then he gave everything up and let it all hang out. His weight started steadily increasing till he was bloated. His waist crossed 36 inches and then nudged 38. That was 16 years ago and Uncle S (though no superdude then) decided to do something about it. He joined a gym.

In the beginning, it was embarrassing, recalls US. The gym would be full of 20-something hunks, flexing muscles and strutting their testosterone. For a 40-year-old out-of-shape man, that's not a great ambience to try and get back into shape. But Uncle S persevered. And it paid. Today, at 56, if you discount the receding hairline and the wrinkles on his face, you might say he hasn't aged beyond 40. His biceps can give today's 20-somethings at the gym a complex and his prowess at the "Hammer" I've already talked about.

The point I'm making is that it's never too late to weight-train. And the benefits are too many to ignore this form of exercise. Weight training doesn't just keep your muscles regenerated (after all, as people grow old, their muscle mass normally declines) but it also increases your basal metabolism rate and is an antidote to stress. Plus, it does wonders for your self-image.

DON'T POP THAT PILL!

A few weeks ago the state FDA busted a fitness diva in Mumbai for supplying harmful weight-loss drugs to her clients. The unfortunate part of the fitness craze is that many such drugs find themselves on the shelves of supermarkets and even neighbourhood grocery stores. One of them is ephedrine, an extract of the ephedra plant, which is widely used for weight loss, as an energy booster, and to enhance athletic performance. The truth could be far from that. In the US last year, a 23-year-old baseball pro died of heatstroke after taking ephedrine, which till then accounted for nearly a $1 billion in sales. Now it transpires that ephedra, if taken along with caffeine, increases the risk of heart attack, tachycardiac strokes, palpitation and death. FYI: Ephedra-based formulations are easily available as an OTC drug in India. Beware.

-Muscles Mani

FAQS ABOUT ACUPUNCTURE

Having nightmares about pills and needles? Relax, a non-intrusive treatment-needle-free acupuncture-can save you the blues. According to Dr. O.P. Chhabra, Senior Consultant Acupuncturist and AcuYoga Therapist at New Delhi's VIMHANS, it's safe, natural, involves no medication or side effects, and lasts long. Here's a primer:

Electro-acupuncture: Acute aches in the back, neck, shoulder and head are, ahem, a pain. Electric pulses suppress pain signals and help your body produce more of its own pain-killing chemicals.

Ultrasonopuncture: The name can sprain your tongue, but the ultrasound treatment can reduce muscle pain or sprain thus: warm the tissues, relax the muscles, and lower the rate of pain impulse conduction.

Laser: Wondrous light, this. Lasers stimulate acupuncture points and rid you of low back pain, spondylitis, frozen shoulders, sciatica etc.

Cupping: Want some Qi? That's energy, actually. Get more Qi and blood flow to ease pain in lower back, shoulders and legs. Pressure applied to the skin through partially-vacuumed cups (by heat, we're told) makes this happen.

Moxibustion: A herb, Mugwort, is burnt close to the acupuncture points to facilitate healing of winter- and rainy-season aches and pains. Weather's changing, but even so...

And yes, the doc advises yoga to go with the treatment. Nothing like a good stretch, you see.

-Payal Sethi