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| Varinder Singh Ghuman nature |
In the whole world among all the athletes associated with this kind of sport, I am the only vegetarian,” Varinder says proudly.Have a good look
at his photo, and tell me, honestly, would you have believed it! After
all, we have been told or rather had it dinned into our heads that the
guys and gals who ate meat vaulted over your average vegetarian should
easily. And yet, we have here a bhim-like figure from Punjab, who says,
he has never touched an egg, let alone, meat, in his entire young life.
The vegetarianism comes out of his family’s religious beliefs, but has
continued through his adult life.Varinder is realistic too. A
body like his, in some ways, is the work of gods, a gift from your
ancestors, as he puts in modern lingo, “Genetics plays a very important
role in the development of your body.”He was fortunate that he carried
that unique set of genes, but a gift of nature alone will not have
pushed him into the world stage.As he came into his teenage years, he
started to build an ambition to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger, the
former Mr. Universe turned Hollywood superstar, who currently is under a
cloud, but is still an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of
body-builders around the world. Varinder says, “He was my hero,
not just me, everybody in bodybuilding anywhere in the world, admires
him.” Varinder’s full-body, each of the 456 muscles bulging (I am taking
a potshot here, I don’t know how many muscles are there in a body) when
photographed look very much like Arnie. Only Varinder is better looking
than his idol!
Now to answer the question that you have been wanting to ask from the
beginning of this story – how did he do it on the aloo bhaji, sarson ka
saga and tandoori roti? He reveals, “I get my protein from milk.” Now
don’t start pushing milk down your teenager’s throat, all it might do is
for him to develop an extreme dislike of the white stuff. Varinder is not talking about just any milk,
but a particular kind that, fortunately, he had access to.It comes from
the buffalo. As the buffalo delivers, the milk that the mother produces
in the first few days, is full of growth hormones, vitamins,
anti-bodies, and most importantly, something called bovine colostrum.
It’s popularly known as ‘yellow milk’ or ‘first milk’.
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| Varinder Singh Ghumanwith salman khan |
“My father is a farmer. We have about 500 to 600 cows and buffaloes and
fortunately, we had a steady supply of this milk,” Varinder says.The
people who told him of this wonder food is his coaches in his village.
Of course, as he grew into a serious contender for, first national
titles (four of them) and then the world titles, he left the buffaloes
behind, and started adding commercially available protein supplements to
his regular diet. “When you’ve to perform at the international level,
these supplements are critical for your success,”
Varinder admits.While his ultimate goal
is to win the Mr. Olympia title, he is also making inroads into world
of movies. Kabbadi Once Again in Punjabi is due to hit the screens in
August. Recently, he signed up with a Bollywood producer to do a Rambo
and it’ll be called Fateh. The publicity material leaves nothing to the
imagination – here’s Sly Stallone (who is also among Varinder’s idol
list) from Talwandi, Punjab. Like his biggest hero, Arnold, he hopes
to smoothly transition to the big screen, with a little bit of help from
some acting coaches. He knows there is a tradition in Punjabi films,
set
off by wrestler Dara Singh (though not on his idol list), and
that he is ideally suited to fill the muscle gap in Bollywood. He is
not as weird as Khali (imagine the Great Khali in a romantic scene) or
as short as Salman Khan. At 6’2″ he could become a genuine Action Hero
for the Indian audiences. For the moment though, JP Dutta, Ramgopal
Verma, Anees Bamzee or whoever, will have to wait till he wins Mr.
Olympia.
