As of 2021, we can find gyms in almost every corner, irrespective of where we're located. However, that was not the case even 20 years ago. Bollywood started taking fitness seriously very recently, thanks to a few names such as Dharmendra and Dara Singh, and then later Salman Khan and Milind Soman among others in the '90s, but bulging biceps and 6 pack abs weren't all that prominent before that.

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Or so we thought. Looks like, Indian Bodybuilding wasn't only limited to a few legends like Mr Universe Manohar Aich. There was a thriving culture of bodybuilding in the country back in the day, even as early as the 1930's.

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Pictures of bodybuilders from Kolkata have resurfaced that date back to 1930. The incredible definition of those all-natural physiques have our jaws on the floor as the sheer grit and dedication required to build a physique like that back when there were no gyms and no calorie tracking mechanisms available, is just unimaginable. Take a look at some of them.

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Shushil Kumar Chakraborty

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Mr S. Bose

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Mr S. Natu

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Budla Lall Bose

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Mr Mool Chand

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Subodh Mukherjee

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Began Raj

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Began Raj

This just proves that the human body is an incredible machine that can be trained for anything, as long as one is devoted to it. These pictures are taken from the book 'Muscle Control and Barbell Exercise' by Bishnu Charan Ghosh and K. C. Sen Gupta (1930).

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