“This is 10% luck, 20% skill /
15% concentrated power of will /
5% pleasure, 50% pain /
And a 100% reason to remember the name…”
Shivani Kumra often listens to rap by Mike Shinoda as she deadlifts 70 kg at the gym.
Dumbbells fascinate her, says the 41-year-old, laughing.
She was a 24-year-old MBA student when she began to wonder what lifting weights might do to her body, says the 5’2” executive.
Could they be the thing that turned her from an underweight weakling, as she saw herself, into the mean machine she wanted to be? At the time, she was one of 40 women in a college of 450 students. She wanted to be stronger because she believed it would make her bolder, less prone to feeling subdued and sitting silent in every classroom.
She was already a long-distance runner and a district-level badminton player, so she had a foundation of fitness to build on. What she wanted was the build of her fearless mother, Suresh Kumra, now 74, who retired as a deputy superintendent with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“My mother supported me from the start. She would compare notes with me and say police training was far more rigorous. ‘Our palms would bleed doing training in unforgiving weather and continuously lifting heavy rifles. This is nothing,’ she would tell me.”
Starting small, with deadlifts of 30 kg, it would be a year before Kumra felt a change. At the end of that period, she realised she no longer moved through the world the same way. She had muscles that actually rippled, and her walk had changed.
She found it easier to be vocal about her ambitions. She segued into sales, something that had always intimidated her.
Among those less than thrilled with the changes was her then-boyfriend. He wanted her to step back and return to the way she had looked, and dressed. The relationship ended.
She was 27 when she met Abhishek Saha. They fell in love over chats about squat reps and weights. The banker, two years her senior, is now her husband.
They have since had a child, and pregnancy was hard, Kumra says. “From being a very social person, I became a recluse. At one point, I thought: ‘What have I done to my life?’” A year in, she returned to the gym and it was “sweet relief”.
“The weights have never looked at me as a girl. They don’t care what I look like. I’m a human being there. That makes me feel exhilarated,” she says.
It’s been years since she hesitated to speak up at a meeting, or in any kind of group. The best part, she adds, is that it’s effortless. She is the person who says what she has to say and does what she intends; that’s simply who she is now.
The weights keep her energised too. “I travel, go out with clients for dinners, catch up with people and then start my day early the next morning.”
She did it all with great care, watchful not to overdo things, leap too far or, vitally, injure herself. Her next phase involves sharing what she has learnt, she says. On Instagram, where she has over 68,000 followers (@shivanikumrafitness), she shares tips on how to begin, how to stay consistent, why one should not give up.
It thrills her that her son, Arjun Saha, 9, is among her fans.
“The other day, a friend was talking about his father, who goes to the gym and has big biceps, and I heard Arjun say, ‘Oh, my mother’s are even bigger. You should see hers.’ I am so elated that my son thinks it’s normal for a mother, and a woman in general, to be muscular.”
