A clubroom with sweaty, groaning men doing one-hand pull-ups and the skin of their arms straining to contain the 16-19 inch biceps is not a place for the chicken-hearted to spend a humid June afternoon.

This is Aparajita Club in Dum Dum Cantonment and it belongs to a dozen or more arm-wrestlers. At the top of the pecking order is 35-year-old Debmalya “Bobbyda” Sengupta, a 10-time reigning arm-wrestling champion from Bengal in the 85kg and above (highest) weight category.

Debmalya — he of the 19.5inch biceps — and pupils Shashikant Yadav, a student of Class XII, Punjay Singh, a 26-year-old security officer with a private hospital, and 20-something Ravi Naik and Jeetu Naik routinely grunt through three-hour training sessions for a cash prize that would buy them hardly 5kg of dressed chicken.

If Debmalya and his gang win their respective weight categories in the next edition of the state arm-wrestling championship this August, they stand to win a purse of Rs 1,000 (no zeros missing). If one of them becomes the Champion of Champions, there’s a bonus of Rs 1,500 up for grabs.

Welcome to the world of arm-wrestling in Calcutta, where passion beats prize money for the barely 120 panja enthusiasts who continue to pursue the dying sport with a little inspiration from Sylvester Stallone in Over the Top.

The 1987 movie about a trucker trying to mend relations with his son had Sly’s character Lincoln Hawk summoning his never-say-die spirit to win an arm-wrestling competition as the underdog. The men huffing and puffing through their routines at Aparajita Club are also all about “spirit”, more so than Stallone because they aren’t vying for a $100,000 prize and a mini-truck!

Debmalya was in Class III when he first watched the movie that transported him to a world where everything revolves around a table with four strips of padding, handlebars to hold with the free hand and a vice-like lock of hands to sometimes vanquish guys double his size.

“The world meets nobody halfway. When you want something, you gotta take it,” declares Lincoln in Over the Top.

Debmalya and his boys follow that credo. “I can never forget Stallone’s eyes and rippling muscles, but it was the never-say-die spirit that stayed on in my heart. I longed to be an arm-wrestler, but it took me 13 years to find out that there’s an association for it,” the old boy of St. Xavier’s Collegiate School said.

For 23-year-old delivery boy Ravi, it’s all about strength and technique rather than expensive equipment that he cannot afford. “Expensive equipment won’t give you an edge in this sport. As long as you are strong, you are on an even keel with any opponent,” said the man who has a couple of national podium finishes under his belt.

They work out six days a week — mostly one-hand pull-ups and routines to strengthen the arm muscles. On Sundays, they do “match drills among ourselves”.