Thanks to a Dutch anthropologist, I came to know a little more about the K-11 School of Fitness Sciences in my own gully in Santa Cruz. Michiel Baas’ book Muscular India: Masculinity, Mobility and the New Middle Class, published by Context/Westland, is a well-researched, well-written and insightful read on the proliferating industry and culture of Indian body building and fitness. Baas explores the lives of gym trainers, and how their aspirations of climbing the socio-economic ladder through body building careers, are stymied by their background, lack of fluency in English and “cultural capital”.

A PhD in anthropology from the University of Amsterdam, Baas has published extensively on the Indian middle class, its lifestyles and aspirations. This book is based on research and interviews in India over a decade. He has 18 pages of bibliography—enough to keep the academics rolling with their paws in the air—yet, he wears his scholarship lightly. His subjects become his friends: one invites him to garland winners in a bodybuilding competition; another enlists his help to formulate business proposals in English; a third, a married man, shares dark secrets about also doing porn videos and being a sex worker for same-sex clients. Disclaimer: I first met Baas when he had moderated Q&As at Soul of India, a film programme I had curated for the World Cinema Amsterdam festival in Amsterdam in 2011, and we have been friends since.