E-Paper
Running into 2010
It’s never easy, but a pair of shoes can fire your soul and change your life. It is time, writes Samar Halarnkar.
On a sultry, summer’s day 20 years ago, I found myself judging cows.
No, really.
It was a slow day in Bangalore before it exploded onto — and helped create — the flat world.
My boss had sent me to a dusty field to report on a curious assemblage of hefty Bangalore cows (most have Danish blood, the result of a clearly successful 1960s inter-governmental programme) and their timid owners.
As the only outsider, I was quickly anointed judge and chief guest. I quickly found there were no criteria for judging. So I set my own: doe eyes, smooth cud, powerful flanks, and, er, degree of tail-swish.
I have a photo of a bemused me handing out a trophy to a hefty heifer and her pleased owner, a farmer clad in lungi and best shirt.
You know one of those moments you never forget? This was it.
But Bangalore changed in two decades, and I never managed to find this particular field of dreams again, until last week. With the sun rising behind me, and a cool December breeze rustling through the gulmohars and over the smelly drain alongside, I was running on a dusty Bangalore road after having dragged myself out of bed.
Suddenly, I found it, the place of my memories. It made me smile, the past merged with the present, I felt all was well with the world, and God was in her heaven.
These are the moments that emerge when you run. The world loses its frenzy, friction turns to rhythm, and a warm euphoria that some call the runner’s high takes hold.
So, dear reader, this is my prediction for 2010: More of you will run than ever before, and India — ground zero of a volatile diabetes, cardiac disease and general ill-health situation — will learn there is more to life than acquiring wealth and getting ahead.
Did you snort? Oh, you have places to go. I see.
Well, get to Marine Drive in Mumbai and watch one of India’s most successful men, Anil Ambani, pound the concrete (better mud than concrete though) almost every day. Running gets you there sharper and faster.
In September 2009, I wrote how I had joined the growing hordes of morning walkers and runners across India, how this movement was pushing an unathletic nation towards a winning feeling, how my modest six-km run was transforming my body and soul, how one day I would have my 10 km.
Well, I passed 10 km in October.
I have no great ambitions of running even the 21-km of a half-marathon. I am a solitary runner, I have my own haphazard goals, and I run when I can, which usually is two or three times a week.
I have my own pace, and a guarantee that my day always goes better when I run.
I love what Jesse Owens said of running: “You could go in any direction, fast or slow as you wanted, fighting the wind if you felt like it, seeking out new sights just on the strength of your feet and the courage of your lungs.”
Let me introduce you to Dr Ashis Roy, formerly of the Indian Air Force, and 77, training for his 100th marathon: in Mumbai later this month.
Dr Roy has run 13 marathons (each 42 km) this year alone. “I may not live for many more years,” he muses when I called him, “But I want India to know running can keep us healthy and change our lives.” For someone who started serious running at age 52, Dr Roy is the inspiration we need.
In 2010, I predict we will seriously start draining the fat of this great land.
Of course, I don’t mean that you should start — if you haven’t before — jogging on the first day of the decade. Read about it or consult a doctor, but don’t be discouraged by one, says Rahul Verghese, who gave up his American life managing global research for Motorola to become ‘Chief Believer’ of runningandliving.com, which tries to market the business of running (“It’s slow”).
Verghese says running in India needs a big push from the medical profession. “If you’re a triple-chinned cardiologist or a 300-pound dietician, how credible are you?” asks the 49-year-old Verghese who ran a Bangalore’s 75 km ‘ultrathon’ in November and saw running in India really catch on in 2009. “It’s now going to grow exponentially,” he reasons, “Because people like you and me, who aren’t athletes, are running.”
Every city in India now has communities of runners. If you’re new, try Verghese’s portal or runnersforlife.com. Aside from sound advice, a good pair of shoes is all you really need. Everything else is an excuse.
If you haven’t run before, and feel odd about it, listen to Joan Benoit Samuelson, an Olympic marathon champion: “When I first started running, I was so embarrassed I’d walk when cars passed me. I’d pretend I was looking at the flowers.”
I get Samuelson. I — never athletic, never sporty, called “fatty” through my teens — felt like this until six months ago when I started running at age 43. I felt like this just before the moment of my Bangalore bovine epiphany, after I kicked myself out of my Lodi Gardens-or-a-park-trail comfort zone and into the traffic-filled streets and ran into some stares.
Within five minutes of feeling the peace, I found I didn’t really care.
Neither should you.
