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As a kid, people used to call me “sukda” all the time. It was frustrating, and honestly, it started affecting how I saw myself. I was underweight, sick most of the time, barely eating, and just didn’t have the kind of support or environment that encouraged a healthy lifestyle. On top of that, I wasn’t working at the time, and the pressure from my family only made things harder—I lost my appetite and even more of my confidence. Looking at me back then, no one—myself included—could’ve imagined I’d ever build a strong, muscular body. But somewhere deep down, I knew I didn’t want to stay that way forever. I didn’t have all the answers, but I had the will to change.
“Tere jaisa phakut nahi khaata huun main (I don’t sit idle and work to earn my livelihood unlike you)” retorted my younger brother once when I asked him about the refrigerator that he bought first time at home. He used to work in Medical Shop and spent most of his salary for daily chores. “You don’t even earn half your younger brother’s income and contribute nothing for household necessities” scolded my mother. I was speechless and confused. That was one of the worst night that I remember when I felt completely abandoned and hopeless in front of my family. That insult made me numb that night and I sulked down into my bed with heavy heart and could not stop cursing my miserable situation. I got up in the morning with misty eyes and tears running down my cheeks and ran out of my house with empty stomach just to look for a quick-payment job to compensate for the discomfort I had caused to my family.
Someone suggested me for house-keeping job which I did for 3 months but left as I used to get only 500-600 rupees which was not even sufficient to fulfill requirements. I then hesitantly joined as ‘Security Guard’ hoping that nobody would notice me in this dress. However, I used to still hide or feel embarrass if some of my friends or relatives accidently recognized me. Unexpectedly, I was removed from this job because I missed to salute once to my Employer. After this, I tried for desk job in a corporate firm where I used to compile all documents but could not continue as I was too pre-occupied with my own ambitious thoughts. There was no job that I could continue and be stable at least for a year as the payment was too less to fulfill even my basic needs or it was not on time. All these was so frustrating that I could not understand what is happening with my life. One thing was clear that I cannot work like this without fulfilling my ambition to change my body and status.
I could not take this hindrance anymore and quit my job to only concentrate on developing my body structure to look better as this is what I was too passionate to go to any extent. As I could not afford a standard well-equipped gym, I had to accommodate my training routine in a local gym by paying 5 rupees situated near my place. I went to this gym for 3 years taking out time from my part-time work as a society manager, sometimes even at odd timings in the late night but there was very little improvement in my body shape due to lack of proper guidance, techniques and adequate nutrition. I was bit disappointed but I still followed my heart and continued my search for better options.
Even though money was tight and I didn’t have a stable job, I never gave up on my dream of becoming a top bodybuilder. I was hungry to learn. Every article or conversation about fitness pushed me to dig deeper and understand more.
I worked part-time and studied at night college just to support myself. That’s when I found a local gym for ₹50 a month and began training seriously. I also started reaching out to professional bodybuilders for advice and realized how important proper nutrition was. Most of my salary went into my diet which included eggs, bananas, and whatever my body needed even if it meant upsetting my family sometimes. Slowly, my body began to change. I trained hard, entered competitions, and kept pushing myself. It wasn’t easy, but I knew all of this was preparing me for something bigger and I refused to quit.
Although there was improvement in my body structure and skills, I realized there was no change in my income or it was very fluctuating. For a month, I would earn 20k to 50k and for the next 2 months I’d have empty pockets. I used to literally plead other trainers to buy in some clients for personal training. Sometimes, I was not able to afford my basic needs such as petrol, dietary requirements and personal gym-wears.
When these miserable circumstances were unbearable, I used to sit at Siddhivinayak temple to bring peace to my mind and pray for good things. Despite repeated failures, I had no answers when my parents and younger brother urged me to leave this path and take up a job with a stable income. Even with deep disappointment and just a faint glimmer of hope, I chose to stay committed to my profession, determined to work harder and make something meaningful out of it.
In 1994, I officially began my bodybuilding journey by winning the Novice Mr. Mumbai Champion of Champions title and several junior-level competitions. This led to my first job as a fitness trainer at Talwalkars, earning ₹4000 per month—my highest salary at the time. Coming from poverty and a vernacular background, I initially struggled to adjust to the posh environment and fluent English speakers, often studying with a dictionary to keep up. Over time, I went on to win prestigious titles like Mr. Mumbai Gold (2008), Mr. Mumbai Silver (twice), Mr. Maharashtra Silver (twice), and multiple Champion of Champion titles across Mumbai and local competitions
To deepen my understanding of fitness, I personally experimented with various exercises, diets, and supplements to observe how my body responded. My sports background helped me adapt quickly and refine my techniques. As I progressed, coaching skills started to come to me naturally. I made it a point to study each client’s health profile in detail—focusing on aspects like age, BMI, body fat percentage, and overall functioning. While plenty of information was available in books and videos, I could never truly believe in a method unless I had tested it myself. This habit significantly boosted my confidence when training clients or recommending dietary supplements. Whenever I encountered a new form of exercise, I was restless until I had mastered it only then did I feel confident enough to teach it to others. This personal benchmark helped me build trust with clients and gain a reputation as a sought-after personal trainer. It wasn’t an easy journey. I left no stone unturned in exploring every exercise that could benefit my clients or my own growth. To further strengthen my professional skills, I earned my certification from K-11 Academy.
I decided to shift to Bandra or Andheri as there was more scope of personal training due to the TV and film crowd residing there and their profession always demanded to look good. I inquired and got an opportunity to work as freelance Personal Trainer in Sykz gym at Bandra. While I was dedicating myself completely in improving on new and different workout techniques and dietary supplements for my clients, one of my client recommended my name to Riteish Deshmukh who joined my personalized training program to get sculpted body for his upcoming movie House full 1. This was when I got my first break to train a celebrity and an opportunity to prove myself as an Effective trainer in the film industry. Riteish was quite happy and satisfied with my training results and further suggested his House-Full 1 team crew to join my personal training. Riteish even insisted me to assist him with his world tour plan for constant coaching and guidance. This was really surprise to me as I used to just wish if I can only go to any country for vacation one day and here I was going on world tour. Another pleasant surprise was when I met Amitabh Bachchan on this tour and he referred to me as ‘Sir’ when I was coaching for some exercise. This was the biggest moment of my life. After that, there was no looking back.
After Riteish, my journey began to become one of the favourite celebrity trainer. I also trained Deepika Padukone and Lara Dutt for short while during house full 1 shoots. My list included Ashish Chaudhary, John Abraham ( Force movie, Race-2, Shoot out at wadala), Genelia d’souza, Jiya khan, Sohail khan, Abhijit sawant ( 1st indian idol), Shekhar ( music director), Shamita shetty, Shilpa shetty, Raj kundra, Harman baweja, Aayushman Khurana, R.Madhavan, Krishika lulla, Purna patel (daughter of Mr. Praful patel), Smruti Shinde ( daughter of Home ministers Mr. Sushilkumar shinde).
Some of the incidents led me to believe that God is reading my mind and giving me what actually I am asking for. Once I had approached police training academy in Marol to share my fitness knowledge. Looking at my potential, I was requested to train police recruits and take seminar at Marol training camp for 1 day which I felt more like an honor. There was a mixed feeling of happiness and bitter memory from the fact that I was not enrolled in the police training academy 5 years back due to my poor background and non-regional surname but now I was taken aback.
I joined Gold Gym as the skyz gym was shut. I was at good start of my body-building career, I joined Freelance Personal trainer where my caliber was noticed more frequently. Many high-profile builders used to approach me for tips and appreciate my efforts and training method. I noticed that there was a fan following atmosphere at this gym which I thoroughly relished and did my best to help others with their expectations. However, little did I know that I was indirectly becoming a hurdle for other trainers in this Gym and their reputations as most of their clients were also coming to me for coaching. Unfortunately, I had to leave Gold Gym as there were complaints against me from all other trainers on irrational grounds.
While I was training at Gold's gym, I suffered from jaundice and malaria and due to a result of long travelling hours for 8 hours a day on bike made my back stiff and aggravated my back problems and lead to slip disc. The condition was so worse that I could not get up from the chair on my own.I was totally dependant on others just to get up, 24*7 it's a killing pain, its worst condition where you are so helpless and medication also cannot help you and you just have to bear each second.Pain killer is the only solution that too was a temporary relief. My profession was full of movements and I could not do anything and still my livelihood was not so good that I could rest.I used to come to the Gym wearing a belt with an assistant trainer to continue with my training. Many suggested me to take rest but it was too small a sacrifice for me to reach my goal I thought. I was ready to take pain, sweat, workload and put- in as much efforts but could not lose even a single opportunity to grow at any cost as this was my peak of the career and was highest paid trainer. I was so occupied with my daily training and handling multiple clients from morning at 6 am till 10 pm in the night that my exposure to sunlight kept on decreasing and I suffered from Vitamin D and Calcium deficiency.I could have still continued with all these problems, however I was unable to take the misbehavior of the management at Gold's gym I had left Gold's gym.
As a result of my own experience with back pain, conditional diseases and observation of various lifestyle diseases, I realized that only working on strength (which is required in body building is not enough or complete fitness). Fitness is vast, I need to learn different fitness techniques to reach complete fitness. The new time-bound and individual-based approach is required to address lifestyle discomforts of my clients by studying their work background, its effects on their body and assigning them unique suitable forms of exercise. For example, an individual with a desk job is more likely to suffer from back pain, incorrect postures pain, heart diseases due to lack of body movement. I used to design an exercise regimen with mixture of different types of fitness techniques. As we are in constantly changing and dynamic environment, the need of the hour is to learn and adopt different types of workouts that suits best to our work-body-lifestyle pattern and bring in new forms of training with enthusiastic vigor and positive attitude instead of failing ourselves with strict set of exercise goals. All these can be achieved from different fitness techniques like strength with weight training, flexibility with dynamic and static stretches and yoga, speed and agility from functional training, parkour, gymnastic, callisthenics and other such training. There are other conditioning and balancing techniques achieved from gadget training like TRX, Bosuball, Swiss Ball, Kettle bell etc. was clear that I cannot work like this without fulfilling my ambition to change my body and status.
Every person has their own struggle or experiences in life which leads them to draw their own conclusion and belief systems. Based on my experience with negative and positive extremities in life, I have come to believe that the intense struggle makes you more responsible, constant hardships prepares you to deal with any situation and your unbroken spirit to prove yourself in life not only brings out the best but matures you enough to give it back to society.
“My goal is now to keep learning, discovering and sharing new and correct fitness techniques, methods and ideas to guide each of those enthusiastic individuals and contribute in the development of disease-free, fit and healthy society.”
