Tough guys do preen, prance

MUMBAI: The Mr Universe championships held at the Brabourne Stadium on Sunday are like an anatomy lesson in dark chocolate.
Lisser Frost, a likeable woman bodybuilder from Denmark and an official with the International Federation of Body Building, explains that marks are given for symmetry, muscularity, definition of muscles, posing routines and such- like.Music to the ears of entrepreneurs distributing pamphlets advertising creagen for explosive power and lean muscle mass and glutamine for cuts— available in delicious chocolate flavour.
As Anwar El Amawy of Egypt wins the first round for those below 65 kgs, cries of Allah-o-Akbar rent the air. Even before he can receive his gold medal, Amawy drops to his knees, faces westwards and kisses the stage. In an unfamiliar land, with floodlights beaming into his eyes, he instinctively knew which way Mecca lay—we find it much more impressive than his poing index.
G.S. Nayak, who is on the jury, explains that while the competitors’ bodies have barely 10 per cent fat, they are still 75 per cent water.
For women who find the exaggerated musculature offputting, it is not clear whether, if the water was squooshed out of these hunks, they would find them more presentable.
In the course of the evening, four paavam minions coolly lift an enormous model of the world onto the stage and later take it away— we think there’s a moral in it struggling to get out.