I did it!!!

The traffic stopped for me at junctions. I swear it stopped. I was the only one running and long trails of bikes, cars, and buses laden with people with Sunday morning plans waited for me to pass. Some cheered me, some just gazed with a palpable curiosity and some, I guess, just wanted me to pass quickly. And it wasn’t just for me. It was the same for very single runner and yet each felt like royalty.

There was an old lady at the end of the Vidhan Soudha road who shouted ‘all the best’ at the top of her voice. Children were the most visibly excited, and puzzled too as to why such a motley congregation was running itself dead. But mostly there was the curious onlooker who was too shy to root for outsiders.

The loneliness during a marathon can only be contrasted with the assemblage at the start. You are rounded up in a flock and then the gunshot. Galloping, ambling, walking - people start in their own ways only to lose contact from there on. The sights and sounds that you encounter along the way come with an exclusive ownership. You've to run to understand.

The organization was shoddy although the full and half marathons did start on time. There were hordes of volunteers who sometimes didn’t have an idea of what was where. Let me have the pleasure of mentioning the Good Day guys who never as much gave a single biscuit as they had useless paper caps thrust into everyone’s hands. In contrast Real Active juice packs were distributed like small change. But all this was more than made up by the enthusiasm of the participants. Early morning Kanteerava stadium came alive when a gunshot was fired and a procession of chest numbers sprang into delirium.

Shashank ran for the cause of underprivileged children, Mr. Anil was dressed in fake tiger skin that had ‘Save Nature’ written all over it, one firang’s iPod flung itself loose and crashed on the way, an uncle ran with supplies of water strapped onto his belt, many ran in T-shirts with slogans, many with earphones plugged deep into ears, a few checked their cell phones every now and then, and a few others gaped at Deepika Padukone on the walls (at least I did).

There were a good number of oldies running and it made me wonder if they were running for a lost age. And considering Bangalore is teeming with software professionals why were they so less? I know you’ve mock CATs to write and Monday mornings are important and Saturday evenings even more so. When people ask me “How was it?” I don’t know what to say. It obviously doesn't concern you much and you'd rather sleep than participate or come to cheer. And where were the ladies? How can there be so few interested? How can so many be into the same things?

We spend a third of our lives in the shadow of death and soon let our waking time become a litany of hours to be passed. We are convinced by Rang De Basanti as much as we are by Munnabhai. But that’s about it; we still can’t make choices for ourselves.

Lester Burnham (American Beauty) had said, “It’s great when you realise you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Makes you wonder what else you can do.”

Yesterday I surely did as did so many others who I ran with.

I finished the Times Bangalore Half Marathon (21 km) in 1h 46 mins and Gujja in 1h 53. Initially we had looked at a realistic 2h 10 and then at an achievable 2h. But we had not even half-expected it to turn out so well.

Finishing a half marathon is the craziest impossibility that has turned possible. And completing it in good time is indescribable.

A huge thanks to Pj, Chandu, Ravi and Ritesh for turning up to cheer us.

MUMBAI MARATHON is on Jan 21 next year!!. Of the top 15 finishers in Mumbai m'thon this year there were 12 Kenyans and no Indians :(

Run Forrest! Run!

I had quit my job, gone for a trek in the Himalayas, came back home – a visitor after almost 2 years. As my luck would have it I chanced upon an old school friend Jay. He had become an Army Lieutenant. I, a truant engineer. He needed some company for his early morning runs. I agreed almost immediately. The casualness of his offer subsequently vanished during the runs. On the first day I jogged 5km in 25 minutes. The distances stretched - 7, 8 10km - (with a concomitant improvement in time) and what had started as a filler became a whole routine. We would run, exercise and then hang around in chai shops for long. I had been doing fairly well until one day he decided to put me to test. It was a 20km python in which I was sure about getting stuck in the middle somewhere in the innards. And I was afraid I would spoil the reputation that I had so recently and so painstakingly built. Jay kept telling me: abbey, daaru, sutta ke baad bhi tu kaafi fit hai yaar.

But I ran. We shifted the time to evening since the summer sun blazed by 630 in the mornings. We walked till Deer Park and from there ran till the Annicut at Naraaj and back. We couldn’t complete the entire length (I was in a dilapidated state). And when I announced 16km at home rather agonisingly there was no jubilation. (and it was at that very moment I pledged to show them that I could run a marathon . . . not so melodramatic of course)

That evening Jay gave me some gyaan on running in particular: (1) It’s your hands as much as your legs which can exhaust you (2) It’s best to know your optimum speed and then stick to it faithfully.

And we talked - I having run out of thoughts to accompany me and he to give me food for thought. He said the clincher was boredom more than fatigue. You thought you were run down when in fact you had been just done in by the sameness. He said one should just run without thinking things or wondering about the route or even noting how much was left to cover. I thought that was a very unimaginative and mechanical way of doing something. But I ran.

I ran every day for about 2 weeks back home and then I continued by myself at NGV in Bangalore. Then I had to go home again and my ritual stopped for almost two months until last week when I heard about the Bangalore Marathon. Sometime after I had started I had promised myself I would run a full marathon but that needs some reckoning still. This time I’m making do with the half marathon i.e. 21km. I collected my chest number the other day and didn’t tick any cause for which I would run on the form. For the love of running if ever there was an option like that.

Yesterday I clocked 15 km in 86 min and there was still some pizzazz left. I felt good even though I was pushing myself after a long time. My target is 21km in 2h 10min.

My preparation has been punctuated with rather long breaks and too little conditioning. But come Sunday morning and I’ll forget. My legs will tell me they can carry me a few yards more, my heart will pump in excitement and my brain has already assured me (during the run only) it won’t meddle with other more important faculties.

The great philosopher Nike(as a sales pitch?) had once said:

"There are clubs you can't belong to, neighborhoods you can't live in, schools you can't get into, but the roads are always open."

Wish me luck!

BANGALORE MARATHON
P.S: The reporting time for the half marathon is 530 am instead of 430 am as has been printed on the handouts and website (in true Indian ishtyle). Better clarify before landing up in the dark at Kanteerava Stadium.

Match Point

1. Guilt

Nola walks off, from the innuendos of the mother of her fiancé, into the rain in the countryside. Chris, boyfriend of Nola’s prospective sister in-law, sees her and follows. Then:

Nola: I don't think this is a good idea. You shouldn't have followed me here.
Chris: Do you feel guilty?
Nola: Do you?

And they kiss in the rain.

2. Lust

Chris: I’m contemplating leaving my wife for another woman. But when the time came to tell her I couldn’t do it. It’s crazy. I can see no real future with this other woman and I’ve a very comfortable life with my wife.
Friend: Ya but then you don’t love her.
Chris: I’m not saying I don’t love her. Just not the way I feel about this other woman. Maybe it’s finally the difference between love and lust.

3. Greed

Chris: I don’t fool myself that I haven’t got used to a certain kind of living. Am I supposed to give it all up?

4. Luck

Chris: The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are often afraid to realize how much of an impact luck plays. There are moments in a tennis match where the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, remains in mid-air. With a little luck, the ball goes over, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

Sometimes luck follows you like a faithful puppy; for the aspiring criminal luck’s like the Hand of God. But guilt is a permanent scar; you’d rather be apprehended and punished than see it everyday in your reflection. Guilt can’t be washed off the face. On the contrary I wonder what are the possibilities if luck helps us in our transgressions – little and big. If we get that little push at the hour of the crime and then things turn out favourably can’t we be led further into our ignoble pursuits?

Match Point is a welcome departure from Woody Allen’s romantic, neurotic comedies although the latter are brilliant in their genre. It’s as the critics say: ‘darker’. I feel at times reviews just shoot over the heads with their fancy talk (called ‘spiel’ which is what I want to avoid to make my point) but then if you watch this movie carefully you’re bound to come up with little clues - that otherwise would go unnoticed – that just make it jump the threshold between a good and a better-than-good movie. Like which book Chris is shown reading at one point and why when Nola says that her building has been burglarized and the woman down the hall has mice it’s something to be kept in mind. The plot is tight and has been lent an ingenious tweak at the end.

The title had led me to believe it was something else altogether but you never know. I’ve practically said nothing about the characters and the setting because I believe the message is sweeping. London, Chris and Nola are just excuses to show human beings as they are wherever they are. It could happen to your best friend if not to you (if you're relieved at reading this don't be surprised)

THIS is for starters.

If you're going to try, go all the way

The cliche of ups and downs, crests and troughs, snakes and ladders croaks rickety; it sounds outrageously banal especially when I'm forced to listen to humdrum speeches by preachy orators. But when I feel all that ebb and flow, high and low within me I realise the reality of it overshadowing it's commonness. I don't have to wait for significant occasions to feel that and God forbid those moments may pass with hardly as much as a flutter of a butterfly wing inside.

Its there everyday; I only have to pay attention. To the abyss I say I can only rise from it; to the sky I tell the fall shall hit hard. And to everything I murmur: this too shall pass.

Every passing day there come a few moments, a handful maybe even less - a solitary thought, where I feel myself. Nothing much happens to me then but its the afterglow that I bask in. It's like a shot of adrenalin, of resplendent beauty, that eggs me on for the oncoming hours, days, weeks. It pedals me on and my wheels run hard. As barriers, uphills threaten to cut me short, slow me down, the inertia of my happy juggernaut keeps me rolling. I pass by the morass without sinking, I ride through the stench without stinking and I roll on.

My life, each life, is such a story. The rough and the smooth, the evil and the righteous coexist, not peacefully or staticaly, but locked in a tussle as profound as any great battle - dynamically. I live my life consoling myself that my happiness will outlast my living. I dream the momentary will outlast the eternal. I wait for a few drops of rain in what can be an endless summer. And in a way - this way - I root for the underdog. And while I'm at it I learn I don't need to. It'll come when it has to. Bon courage!

May the living keep flying and may the dead rise from the ashes.

The hospital IS NOT RESPONSIBLE for your valuables

As we - D, our domestic help, and I - entered the Emergency Medicine Dept. at St. John's the guard at the entrance halted us to ask the patient's name which I dutifully said adding that it was a head injury - an emergency case. Then he asked me my name which I mumbled before he relented to direct us. A few metres on at the other end of the corridor the second guard, making sure he disbursed his duties well, stopped us again to carry out the charade. And as all this transpired D was bleeding profusely - the towel wrapped around his wound soaked like a cigarette butt in public loos. Finally after we were let in into the Priority - 1 room a doctor (a lecturer in medicine) took an interested look and asked a few questions before he asked his junior - a PG student Mr. T - to diagnose him. Mr. T now enquired his quota; he hadn't paid attention the first time they were asked. He wrote down the rather lengthy report - left lateral laceration, 8 cm long, 1.5 cm deep, weapon involved: kitchen knife, address, thumb impression, etc) during which a few nubile interns gathered around him and invited him to their world with enticing smiles and he in turn blushed baby pink. And after a good 20 mins of entering the premises we were asked to get an X - ray done of the skull ( Anterior-Posterior and lateral). The X-ray room was a 100 metres walk. And after it was done the operator refused to give me the X ray saying that it'll be sent to the Priority -1 room. So I went back only to be asked by Mr. T for the X-ray. After listening to me he ordered someone to fetch it from the X ray room since they normally took a long time to send it across.

As we waited a few Sisters got together for some chit-chat. I hadn't paid them any attention until then and what I saw made me rue it. Miss I was telling Miss J about this new intern from Germany, "I've heard he's very intelligent. He has won many prizes and all." I turned to stare at a 6 ft 5 in giant. Meanwhile the X-ray report arrived and it became the cause cèlébre as every soul worth an ounce of medical literature decided to look into it. It was determined beyond the reasonable doubts of a few too many noble docs, interns,etc that there was no damage to the cranium (thats why the X ray had been done in the first place) . There was a brief 'pehle aap' fiasco between the German Mr. G and the Indian Mr. T as to who would treat the patient. By seniority Mr. T won the vote. The stage was set. Or so I had thought.

In the emergency ward of a hospital as big as St. John's at any given point of time there are 8 - 10 suture sets. But right then there wasn't a single one. All had been despatched to be sterilised (hygiene is of paramount importance of course) My patience running thin while having already waited 15 mins for the suture set I asked Mr. T as to why they couldn't/didn't send the sets in batches instead of all at once. He reassured me - "It happens man."

When the suture set arrived a trolley was rolled on wheeled legs with the necessary equipment. Mr. T put on his rubber gloves only to find: there is no razor to shave off the hair off the scalp surrounding the laceration. So another hunt began, and the razor wass hunted down after 10 odd mins but it turned out useless without a blade which was eventually got from a simpering Sister. And then the suture started. Since it was quite a long and deep incision it took time. While Mr. T was on his 3rd stitch the Sisters and attendants had vanished and a swelling beacuse of a blood clot (haematoma) had developed. I was asked, "Do you fear the sight of blood?" I said, "No" and I was invited over to assist Mr.T !!!

Now because of the fresh blood that kept collecting at the site of the wound a soft, pulpy mound had formed. When a stitch was put blood would ooze/ gush out of the puncture site because of the pressure built up by the rupture of the blood vessels in the area. Increasingly it was becoming difficult to tie it up. I helped by pouring Povidine-Iodine solution into a cup, giving gauzes to Mr. T by forceps, replenishing the saline in the saucer and asking D, the victim, to pinch himself hard to take his mind off the pain. 12 stitches were put in place after a drawn out hour. Mr. T taking the advice of a senior surgeon put on Dynaplast (a kind of elastic band) over the tomb that had formed by now. Wiping off the blood off the face and hair took another 10 mins after which a Sister who had vanished earlier handed me 3 prescriptions.

The St. John's pharmacy is overworked and understaffed. It took me an hour to get the medicines. And finally after enquiring about the doses and outpatient facilities it was time for home.

12 stitches, 140 cm of non-absorbable suture wire (Ethilon), a huge quantity of blood, 4 and a 1/2 hours and an extremely frustrating experience later all I remember is this:


1) During one of the many waits I asked the German guy as to 'what if there is a serious emergency?' (I had to put it that way since a plain, simple emergency had lost it's effect). He said 'but there isn't one now.' I stressed on the 'what if' part and regretted it because he told me next, ' This is India. It happens all the time.' After enquiring I came to know he had been there for 5 weeks but he said he was sure of what he said. A German has the audacity to say this about one of the premier hospitals of Bangalore.

2)Doctors are esteemed a lot. They are veritable demi-gods. But one who is insincere can make you sick to your bone and you get to know this the hard way. We all cheat and fool around at our jobs but a doctor in the emergency dept. simply cannot afford it. It's a God-forsaken place where tempers run high and patiences run thin and to look at Sisters having crushes by the minute, interns make silly passes, or male attendants mistaking boobs for faces is a blood-boiling thing. There are genuinely sacrificing doctors and nurses no doubt and I understand how difficult life must be for them. But the ones who are not - God forbid them from you.

3)And all this had started because of what the security guard of an adjacent building had to say to D: that the hair on his chin was more than the hair in his (D's) loins.

4) The hospital is not responsible for your valuables. (This was written in the Emergency dept) If your life is a valuable then bad luck!

right to live. live to write

A pen. A paper. And you're ready to write? Alright, some food for thought.

Is it that simple? (rhetoric)

Writing at all times is a personal experience. But within that there are so many demands to be met and so many things to be kept in mind. In school it was to write some sense in 350 words. In college it was to stretch out 'one liner' answers into full pages until the examiner got so confused in your clap-trap he was convinced "iss bandey mein kuch hai". And all the time we never really had to think

Unfortunately, if you want to write..no I mean really write..no you still didn't get me.. i mean really, truly write then the situation gets a trifle tricky.

Pen, paper and food for thought are all mandatory ingredients but you need that something..that spark to ignite the fuse.. and then write as it sets your imagination on fire. Then repeat the process over and over again until it becomes a habit, a second skin. I'm not sure where to get that and I doubt attending creative writing classes help.

Sometimes, or maybe at most times, its easier to write pages about one incident, like in real time, than club huge chunks of time in a single paragraph. When you recount an anecdote there loom a thousand finer points. Some important, or rather relevant to the story, and some not so. Its absolutely necessary to thresh the chaff from the grain. Because if you don't the reader may look upto the wrong pointers to relate to. And in the end, its how much anyone relates to, or understands what you want to say, that makes him harbour any feeling from adoration, love to hate, disgust for your work.

Midnight's Chilren is a brilliantly written book. Its a veritable training module on how to narrate. Yet when I first tried to read it, it just left me with a collection of new words. And when I asked a few of my friends they shared my sentiments ( and I was relieved!). But guess what? It has won the 'Booker of Bookers' award. That means it has been held as the best book to have won the Booker prize in its first 25 years. Yet more people (atleast in the 20-30 group) must've read 'One Night at a Call Centre' and maybe even enjoyed.

Does it say anything about the readers or is there something wrong with being critically acclaimed?

Its the same thing as masala potboilers setting box-offices on fire and crtically hailed, landmark movies coming a cropper at the marquee. Filmmakers never blame the viewers when serious and good cinema falls flat on its face. Instead they say the audiences' taste is different or may be there was something wanting in their product. Its called biting the bullet

It can happen with anyone with creative products to sell for a living ( I mean arts..so all you engineers, doctors, MBAs dont come at me..). But when you're at it, when you're writing...no I mean really really writing... thats the last thing that comes to your mind. You don't measure yourself by any standards. And all you need is just a pen and paper. Because an imagination has run amok. A storm has been raged. You can't ever catch the wind, can you?

I'll end with this piece from 'The God of Small Things'

"Anything's possible in Human Nature," Chacko said in his Reading Aloud voice. Talking to the darkness now, suddenly insensitive to his little fountain-haired niece. "Love. Madness. Hope. Infinite joy."

Of the four things that were Possible in Human Nature, Rahel thought that Infinite Joy sounded the saddest. Perhaps because of the way Chacko said it.

Infinite Joy. With a church sound to it. Like a sad fish with fins all over.

??????????

For a generation, a society, to believe in a philosophy took one man, really.

Think of how difficult it is to convince a populace of a tenet, to unite them under the aegis of a single idelogy, by thinking of how unsuccessful a generation, that India which was unified before independence, has been in making its children understand what they believed in. Non-violence died long back, sometime before Gandhi did. It was as if Ahimsa had a meaning only until the fight for freedom from imperialists was on. Once that battle was won it lost it dissolved - corpus and will.

I'll be a trifle defensive and say rightaway that I'm not vouching for Ahimsa. I don't know if its right or if it can withstand the quicksand of practicality (we call it realpolitik these days). I'm too naive for that. Or maybe I'm too informed without having being there and done that. But I fail to understand how a path of action followed by so many billions could be so summarily abandoned especially when they so strongly and so obvoiusly believed in it? You can argue with the non-aligned movement and how atleast under Nehru we were a peace loving nation which we're even now. But still how could parents not teach our midnight's children what they stood for? Or did they actually stand for it?

I'll look at it from the other side. What about war? Is there anything called victory in war? With all the abstruse terms floating around - psychological victory, strategic vic, tactical vic - somewhere even the focus has shifted from the noun onto the adjective. History has taught us that men and weapons make bad bedfellows. The judgement of human beings simply cannot be trusted to save humanity from disaster. Muhammed of Ghazni attacking us 17 times or Alexander conquering most of Eurasia after bloodbaths didn't cause as much damage as a World War did. Japan has learnt its lessons well. There is more intelligence, more life, more beauty at stake now. What is meant to be a deterrent doesn't take time to become an agent of pre-emptive attack. Victory in war can at best be Pyrrhic and even that, most of the times, is overestimated. You can say Israelis have been more sinned against than sinning or the Hezbollah militia have a right to their freedom but it doesn't change a thing and that's exactly what is sad. Someday it'll become so complicated, and absurd, that our collective fate - the kind that you must've read about in sci-fi novels - has to be decided by a throw of dice. Words like Cataclysm, Apocalyse, Armageddon will be in our newpapers once and after that no word shall ever be printed.

I respect our soldiers. They put their lives on the line. For people like us who care about them mostly when they die and maybe moreso if they have saved a few civilians before dying. If this is repugnant it's as much of a truth as the view that soldiers are perpetrators of some of the worst human rights violations in high insurgency areas all over the world. The concept of a nation is an epic truth, that of safeguarding it is sounder, and even the rationalism that it's a job like the doctor's or engineer's and everyone has to contribute in their own way makes sense but . . . Why is it that today in our armed forces there is a growing shortage of personnel? Maybe our youth have found better, less riskier alternatives to earn a living. Does that make fighting for one's country a last resort, or one of the last options? Is the concept of patriotism losing relevance because you can't see the bad guys from the good ones?

Life verily exacts its revenge when something that you've stood for all along stands compromised. Soldiers make such choices and I respect them for that. You read first hand accounts of the World Wars, or watch Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line and you'll get an idea. The only thing that war gives for sure is scars. It leaves countless sentinels who have fought for freedom, with guns and death, with a numbness that makes the rest of their days a living hell. The saddest thing is to come back home a hero and then lock yourself up and question whether whatever it was that you fought for was right. Was worth it.

Someone said 'everything's fair in love and war' after which people have been repeating it for ages. This thing is so old I bet no one even thinks about it before saying it. This statement in a nutshell says this: the goals of love and war are the highest ideals for which any man can strive. So all actions stand redeemed in the process of accomplishment of those ideals.

But really if you ask me maybe most things are fair in love (ok can I have some more time to decide? :-)) but war? .. no comments ... you should ask the guy who first said it.