I had met Monohar the previous evening in the lodge where he was staying. He had come to Palghat (an administrative district in Kerala, the southern-most State of India) in order to inaugurate a new Health Club. For me it was the realization of a long-cherished dream.

I had last seen him over thirty five years ago when he came to my home town as the strongman of a touring circus. I was a small boy then, weighing considerably less than the 98 lbs considered mandatory for weaklings. But I was a weakling all right and I still remember the awe with which I sat through his act. It consisted of some weightlifting: mainly kettle-bells, and a neck-strap with weight at the end. Circus strongmen usually make exorbitant claims, and the general public, not very knowledgeable when it comes to weightlifting, fails to see through their fakery. They speak glibly of five hundred pounds or even a thousand pounds, and I am talking about weight which they raise aloft over their head!

Monohar was scrupulously honest as befits a true athlete. He said he was lifting 270 lbs. which it was easy to believe. He also did some strand-pulling, and capped the show with a stunning display of muscle-control. Because of that act, which I must have seen at least half a dozen times in succeeding weeks, I began to take an interest in physical culture. And ever since I had admired the man and felt indebted to him.

The small man who greeted me in his lodge room was friendly and cheerful. He was amused, and I think pleased, to learn that I had seen his show thirty five years ago and still remembered him!

I presented him with some of his pictures from my collection, mostly scanned and printed from old issues of Health & Strength. He was obviously pleased to receive them. "I had a number of old copies of H&S with me", he said wistfully. But his wife who had been their custodian had passed away recently and now he could no longer locate them.

"We were man and wife for over sixty years", he said, and it was obvious that the old man was still mourning her death.

 

 

These three photos, taken on the seashore, are from the time when I first saw him in the circus in Kerala. He was in his fifties then.

Monohar was eighty eight, going on eighty nine, but he still read without glasses and showed few traces of his advanced age. Most of his teeth were gone, and his face made him look old, but his body was still that of a much younger person. The arms were still enormous, soft when relaxed, but rock-hard when flexed. The pectorals and the waist had started to sag a bit, but only a bit. And he had a thick, muscular neck which was most impressive. All that neck-strap lifting had not been in vain.

Later we went out walking. There was an old, abandoned fort nearby which he wanted to explore. It was fairly dark by the time we reached there, and since the whole place was full of crumbling granite and half-broken steps, I was hesitant. But not Monohar. As I kept peering uncertainly down through my specs, Monohar, at almost twice my age, climbed up and down as spryly as any mountain goat, and never seemed to take a wrong step. Nor did he take kindly to the helping hand offered by our young companion whom he rebuffed with an oath and a swing of his arm.

Monohar had started bodybuilding at an early age, but the real break came when he met British bodybuilder Reub Martin in the early forties to whom, Monohar says, he owes all his success. Reub coached him in the principles of modern bodybuilding, and later he encouraged Monohar to participate in the Mr. Universe contest. And participate he did. In the Mr. Universe competition of 1951, Monohar was runner-up behind fellow-Indian Monotosh Roy (short-man class). Next year, in 1952, he won the crown.