Wednesday 29 October 2014

Meeting the Parle-G lady


Biscuit seems to have settled into the new place, he woke up with my alarm, maybe, first time after coming to Chennai and stayed up with me for the entire spinning session. We had a leisurely walk starting 3 AM. What struck me while going around the Railway colony was that all the blocks have been named after rivers of India and despite that they together are not able to stem the stench of Cooum river flowing alongside, irony indeed! Back after the walk at 3:45 AM, with another 20 minutes for the Chennai Express to arrive, I tried the plank for 30 seconds (measured by breathe in- breathe out!), and followed it by a power nap. Today I was at the gates before Chennai Express arrived.

Sundar arrived at 4:05 AM, today’s discussion was about my attempt at buying a second hand car and my fears of getting cheated. He has graciously accepted to negotiate and gather market intelligence for me! The run was not as smooth today, maybe, sore from yesterday’s run. Reached Lighthouse at 4:49 AM. Cow feeding accomplished in the first loop itself, today, I did not step on to the green as I had a bad experience yesterday and waited for the cow to come to me. The grass has some other vegetation with thorns and is not barefoot friendly. I have become comfortable with giving the peels in the cow’s mouth without fear or revulsion.

The Marina was very crowded today and we had to weave through walkers and sleeping people on the pavement. A man sleeping and his best friend (read dog!) curled up at his feet presented a heart warming sight! The run on this stretch has now become a quiet affair and usually punctuated with waves and smiles exchanged with other runners and walkers.

Now is the time to introduce the protagonist of today’s blog. Near the Labour statute usually a large number of dogs are found. They assemble and wait for this lady to arrive who feeds them Parle-G biscuit every day. While waiting for their b’fast to arrive, they were playing games and some veterans were just lolling around. I had an interesting exchange with her when I reached the same point in the second loop. Reached RBI at 5:22 AM, today was 3 minutes slower than yesterday. On the way back we were following a young runner who was setting a decent pace effortlessly. Without showing that we wanted to overtake him, both of us tried to accelerate to overtake him. He also looked behind every time we reached near him. We caught up with him when he reached his finish point, the Gandhi statue. We crossed him and an exchange of smiles of mutual respect happened. Reached Lighthouse at 5:52 AM (the gentleman had made us do the 5K+ in 30’ flat!). I gave him a clap of admiration when I crossed him on the second loop drawing a wide grin from him, one more friend added to friends list!

At the labour statue the lady was there distributing Parle G biscuits. I stopped and politely told her that I am a dog lover myself and appreciate her feeding the stray dogs and also asked her if she would mind a few suggestions from me! She immediately got on her guard and asked if it is about littering the covers and told that she takes back all the covers in her bag. I said that the glucose biscuits are not good for dogs and any bakery biscuit without salt/sugar and very less oil/fat is best for them. She asked me if I could help her find a bakery, I accepted and promptly passed on the problem to Chennai veteran, Sundar! We have a saying in Tamil, which goes like this; when a young Brahmin was asked by a lady as to why he was still unmarried, he is said to have asked the lady if she would be his wife!


Balaji Ganesan met us here and joined us for a run to RBI and back till Gandhi statue. I came to know that both Sundar and Balaji are Loyala college students, and in no time the two young Loyola loyalists ganged up and left the Hubli passenger huffing and puffing behind. It took me till RBI to catch up with them. We reached RBI at 6:23 AM. We ended at Gandhi statue around 6:50 AM and had a big break for some photographs with Balaji. Reached home at 7:36 AM. 

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