The Fitness Band

Last month, I bought a fitness band for 2,347 rupees. The odd number should have been the first warning sign.

The band promised to track my steps, monitor my sleep, and remind me to move every hour. What it actually does is judge me. At 11 PM, when I am perfectly happy horizontal on my bed scrolling through reels of people climbing mountains, the band vibrates: “You’ve taken 847 steps today. Walk 153 more to reach your goal.”

I do what any self-respecting man would do. I swing my wrist vigorously while lying down. The band adds 84 steps. (Technology, I have learnt, can be negotiated with.)

My friend Nikhil, who runs marathons for fun - a mental condition I have stopped trying to understand - told me that these bands change lives. “Bhai, pehle din se hi subah 5 baje uth ke 10,000 steps maarta tha,” he said, flashing his toned calves at me like a peacock who just discovered leg day. I nodded, secretly calculating that 10,000 steps is roughly the distance from my bed to the fridge and back, 500 times. The math didn’t inspire me.

The sleep tracking feature is particularly insulting. Every morning it tells me my sleep score. Last Tuesday I scored 43. Out of 100. A student who scores 43 in Dewas is taken to the temple and made to promise better performance. My mother would have been devastated. The band, however, offered no remedies - just cold data and a passive-aggressive suggestion to “try sleeping earlier.”

I did try sleeping earlier once. At 10:30 PM, I put away my phone, closed my eyes, and lay in the darkness like a man awaiting enlightenment. My mind, starved of stimulation, immediately began composing a strongly-worded email to a colleague who had wronged me in 2019. By midnight, I had mentally drafted three versions, imagined his apologetic reply, and graciously forgiven him. I checked the band. 0 hours of deep sleep.

“Ye band kharaab hai,” I told my wife the next morning.

“Band theek hai. Tu kharaab hai.” She didn’t even look up from her tea.

The heart rate monitor is the one feature I genuinely appreciate. Not for health reasons - I use it to scientifically confirm my stress during work calls. When my manager says “quick sync,” my heart rate jumps from 72 to 94. When he says “let’s loop in leadership,” it crosses 110. I now have data to prove that corporate jargon is literally killing me. (Somewhere, a cardiologist is nodding.)

Last week, the band congratulated me for hitting 10,000 steps. I was elated. I checked the day’s activity: I had walked to Jayanagar 4th Block market, circled the same three shops fourteen times looking for a specific type of pickle my mother wanted, failed to find it, walked back home, and then walked to the market again because she called and said she’d accept the other brand.

So there’s the secret to fitness. It’s not discipline or motivation or expensive gym memberships.

It’s a mother who knows exactly which pickle she wants.

PS: The band also tracks “stress levels.” I have disabled that notification. Some data is better left uncollected.