Hope for the world

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!