“All
I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own
nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter
what anybody else says.” ―
Haruki Murakami,
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
It
was a wonderful sunday morning and I was moving at an average of
2.5m/s on the roads of Pune University. Around me there were plenty
of others, some moving much swifter and some much slower, some much
older than me and still moving faster and so on and so forth. Surprisingly, who among the bunch of runners
finished in front of me and who finished after, neither concerned me
nor did I notice. The aim was to reach the finish line in a healthy
time and try to discover & enjoy the void while doing that. If
anyone is wondering 'whats happening?' after reading thus far, let me
explain, I was participating in a run organized by Pune running and
was attempting to run my first quarter marathon.
“The
thing about running is once you get a rhythm for your heart and the
legs going, you can keep moving forward as long as you want!” Said
the gentleman in his fifties who was now running alongside me and
happily cheering on the other runners. Well I cannot disagree with
him, but go on forever?? Have to say I didn't feel that way after a
little more than a hour or so of running, but I plan on exploring
running for all its worth to try and discover that rhythm and leg
movement that he was talking about. An old man in his late sixties or early seventies passed by.
He was running the 21K run. He smiled. In fact, everyone who was
running there was smiling, clapping and encouraging each other, especially the ones who are visibly tired but pulling
themselves along and all red in the face from the effort. To some, my
description of the situation might make all people at the run might
seem a little nuts. However, standing by my staunch belief that I am
perfectly sane, I can vouch for their sanity.
I
am not going on to try and give reasons for how wonderful a feeling
it is when you are running and yapity yap yap. Quite frankly, I
wouldn't say I know how wonderful a feeling it is and I have nothing
to tell anyone about running, let alone promote it. However, the
concept of a homemade void filled with my own nostalgic silence does
sound intriguing and I hope to one day fully understand what Mr.
Murakami was saying and so I shall run till that day and beyond.
However till then running will be for me an opportunity to, without
judgement, push my limits, a means to keep myself fit to play
football, a platform to plug in the earphones and day dream
uninterrupted and something to look forward to everyday.
The
quarter marathon completed, the next stop was a nice little popular
Irani Cafe – Vohumen Cafe. Like in the case with any nice little
place in India, this was crowded like a stadium too. A small wait and
a Cheese Sandwich, Toast Butter and a Tea later we stepped out. I
should probably explain here that by 'we' I mean my friend who had
invited me for the run, his colleague whose name I cannot remember
for the simple reason that I have a terrible memory and myself. Up
came an old lady promptly to us and started chatting away with the
colleague of my friend in perfectly good English. I am sure that she
picked out this colleague of my friend from our group of three solely
because of the fact that she was a female. The lady was by behavior
and appearance a beggar and apparently an honest one at that. She had
stepped up promptly and explained how she had a job on most days, and
how today being a sunday she had no way to earn anything but to dress
up in shabby clothes and request kind people like the colleague of my
friend for some help. A couple of minutes later the colleague was
handing the lady some bananas and buying her a tea. The strange lady
proceeded, with a great big cheshire cat smile on her face, to
explain that she was a kind soul from Goa, who was cheated by her
boyfriend and now without a means to look after herself. At this
point I could only come up with three possible explanations for the
scenario we were facing
a)
We were being taken for a ride by a really great actress who was
pointlessly wasting her talent by restricting herself to the streets.
b)
There was mental hospital close by with a bunch of nurses running
around looking for a missing inmate
c)
She was a genuinely honest person.
I
decided to not ponder over what was the right answer from the above.
Irrespective of the answer she was living life at her own pace and
with a smile on face and for that she probably deserved the bananas
and the tea.
In
all, a nice little sunday morning spent in and around several
characters all rolling on at their own pace and resembling smiley's,
was a good beginning to the day. Later on in the evening Ryan Giggs,
playing his 900th match for Manchester United, scored a last minute
winner and my day, which had begun on a good note, ended on a
pleasant one too and I decided to sit down and write about it.
