A story to start
Harjeet Singh is 45 and runs a small hardware shop in a narrow lane near Hall Bazaar in Amritsar. He rolls up the shutter at nine, sits on a wooden stool behind the counter and rarely leaves it before eight at night. His nephew fetches stock from the godown upstairs, because the stairs leave Harjeet puffing. At his last check-up, the doctor frowned at his fasting sugar and said one word: prediabetes.
Gyms felt like a place for college boys, so Harjeet started small. After lunch he now walks to the end of the bazaar and back. When the shop is quiet, he does calf raises behind the counter, which makes his regular customers laugh. Three times a week his nephew coaches him through squats and dumbbell rows on the roof, and on Sundays he cycles slowly along the canal road with two old friends.
Three months on, his knees still creak and some weeks he skips a session. But he climbs to the godown himself now, sleeps more deeply, and his latest sugar test came back a little lower. He is not training for a medal. He is training to keep running his shop for another twenty years.