Amma had the uncanny ability to
take anything her opposition did till her rise in politics to a whole new level
and she beat them hollow at it. The poster and cutout warfare was one such
activity. With her demise her opponents have slowly found voice and wall space
to express themselves. I was thinking of this and some more while trying to
read her eulogies (by trying to read tamil poster by putting together letters!)
at my usual biological break point opposite the US embassy. It was such a colossal
waste that she decided to take this path when she had the power to define
politics. Just a few hundreds of meters from that point I saw unfinished wall paintings
about man’s relation with nature and the need for saving trees with a theme ‘Hope
for the World’. It was ironical that this was being heralded from the boundary
walls of Stella Maris college, the alma mater of Late Ms. Jayalalitha! It was
as if they were atoning for their illustrious senior’s follies!
Since my last post and my splinter in
the foot episode, I have moved on. I thought about why I suffered the injury
after so many years of injury free barefoot running. The fault was in my trying
to hit out my way out of trouble, a.k.a. Virender Sehwag style when faced with
a splinter in the foot. The trick is to land softly and if anything pokes and
does not fall off by the next landing of the same foot, stop and examine. What
had compounded the problem was repeated pounding on the injured sole hoping to
beat it into submission. I have gone back to basics and now grind the
opposition Rahul Dravid style, ‘vinamrata se’! If you land mindfully and
softly, one could run over a bed of arrows too, I now believe Bhishma could
have lain on a bed of arrows by a similar technique!
As for my continuing battle with my
hobbled left knee, I see light at the end of the tunnel. By running daily, even
if with a very painful start, by keeping at it the swelling at the shin and the
place where knee meets the shin, it has got better. The trick I think is to be
patient and not be too hard on the injured part, coaxed gently it turns up for
the party and once warmed up, it really party’s hardest!
While celebrating regularity and
punctuality Hubli passenger style, I have been seriously offended by an article
sounding very medical that running long distances is bad for the kidney. I know
that this has affected runners of all shades going by the number of posts
sharing this news. Serious addicts like your’s truly will never get dissuaded
by such dirty tricks, but, there is a nagging fear that this could be picked up
by our better halves to discredit running in general. While the country is
investigating foreign NGO’s, we must also investigate the source and motivation
of this study, I fear it must be the handiwork of distressed spouses affected
by the long runs! We runners do pull down obese people and couch potatoes by
calling their liver and hearts names, but, going for the kidney in retaliation
is literally hitting below the belt! Coming as it does when the weather Gods
have been conspiring to deliver the knockout punch to the Chennai runners, the
timing could not have been worse! Going by the ever increasing runners on the
Chennai roads in the mornings defying such studies and the adverse weather, we
are sure made of sterner stuff!
Romeos are not having an easy time,
Our neighbor in Delhi had a pet by that name and the ailing Labrador (about the
same age as Biscuit!) lost the battle to the dreaded disease Cancer and moved
on. I am sure he can live up to his name in the other world. Meanwhile a crow
couple (normally one sees a group of them aptly called Murder!) has taken
residence at the tree next to Couum river near Napier bridge. Going by the
unfamiliar and incessant chatter the couple keeps up, they sure seem to have
moved from the persecutions of Yogiland! South has long been a safe haven to persecuted
people.
Last but not the least, your’s
truly crossed one more year of running and being of the age when every passing
year reminds one of slog overs with asking rate going up all the time, the
greetings (does anyone know how to turn off the birthday in the facebook
profile!) only exasperated the feeling. I did what I know best, another 32K of
the sweatiest. Thank god for small mercies when runners can indulge in this
age-defying exercise and forget the inexorable march of time!
