The Autographed Picture

When I was in Hawaii, Savyasachi and I went into a weightlifting store called the Hawaiian Sports Shoppe. There were posters on the wall of Lee Haney and Tom Platz. I showed the salesman the article about me in Iron Man magazine. He was so excited that he called the owner and the manager, and they told all the customers about me.

The owner was a young man and the manager was an old man. The owner has been doing weightlifting for 10 years and the manager for 20 years, and they could not believe what I had done in such a short time. Both of them looked at me with such love and respect. They were so excited when I told them I could lift 600 pounds with one arm. They said that they had read the Iron Man article twice and also they had read about me in Flex and other magazines.

Then they wanted to give me a T-shirt and hat free. They asked me what colour I wanted and I told them blue. So the T-shirt they gave me was my favourite colour.

Then they asked me for an autographed poster or a picture of me that they could put up in the store. When I went back another time to show them some pictures, they chose my 503-pound lift. They were most impressed with how high I had lifted it off the bar. They immediately framed the picture and put it up with the posters of Lee Haney and Tom Platz. They were also impressed with the picture of me lifting the elephant, but they said that the picture of me lifting the weight was better for them since they are a weightlifting store.

— 19 October 1986

From:Sri Chinmoy,My weightlifting tears and smiles, part 2, Agni Press, 1986
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/wts_2