Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling seem to be the only two places for outdoor physical training in India. I’ve fancied going to a fitness boot camp to spend at least a month just playing sports, exercising, and generally living the outdoor life for a long time. This isn’t triggered by any desire to lose weight or muscle up. So, I recently went hunting for some other options for fitness boot camps and arrived at the painful conclusion that other than the institutes run by the Indian Army, the idea of boot camps has yet to catch on in this country obsessed with massages, aromatherapy and yoga.

I first googled – ‘fitness boot camp training’ and got a page full of ‘Indian technology’ boot camps. Figures. Then I googled ‘weight loss resort,’ ‘fat farms India,’ ‘Health farm,’ ‘fitness camps,’ etc etc. Here are the three types of results I got:

1. Aromatherapy and Naturotherapy Resorts: All those guilty of believing that a few scented candles can perspire the fat away – Go stand in a corner with a finger on your lips. I came across question-answer forums where people professed their strongest, life long desires to lose weight by going back to their indigenous roots of making tea over a slow fire, brewed with green tea leaves that anti-oxidate the toxins away. A few #WTF moments later, I changed the search string.

2. Weight Loss Resorts: Then there are the clip art websites that employ serious will power to market their wading pools and three-piece machine gyms as weight loss centres that’ll have you looking like Angelina Jolie in just 20 beautifully divine days. These seem to aim the fashion magazine crowds. So we quietly move on.

3. The Real Stuff *read: The stuff that costs an arm, a leg, a kidney and India’s GDP.* Maybe someday I’ll make it to Ananda Spa in the Himalayas. For now, I hate their SEO guys for letting it pop up as a place I should visit to be the healthiest I’ve ever been. Unless I work for a magazine, newspaper or channel that sends me there on a freebie trip where I can use only A, B, C, while gazing at what the guys with the real money are up to – chances are I’ll be away a while. Ananda Spa in the Himalayas – I’ve got a kitty. I’ll see you yet.

So, I’m back to where I started – knowing that Nehru Institute of Mountaineering in Uttarkashi, and the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute in Darjeeling are the only two non-fuss, non-frills, honest to goodness outdoor training institutes in India. Both are run by the Indian Army and if you don’t walk in expecting 5-Star treatment and are enthusiastic about sweating it out, then these two are the places for you. I know that I’ll be heading back to NIM Uttarkashi for another dose of training soon. Here endeth my fitness boot camp search.