“Ekush dofa dourey maarey” (from “Ekushe Aain”)

As many as 21 runners showed up for the Chalupa group run. Remarkably, three of the youngsters – Uma, Raya and Nikita – forsook sleeping in on a summer vacation Sunday morning and came out. We had four out of town visitors – Aniruddha and Indrani from Dallas, Texas and Shilpa and Scott from Birmingham, Alabama. Funnily enough, Scott introduced himself as Scott-esh 🙂 🙂

The usual culprits – Mrinal-da, Seemita-di, Indrani, Rituparna, Tania, Sharmila, Malobika, Ashok, Samaresh, Haimanti, Sreerupa, Bhaskar and Rakhi were all there. We missed Mrs. Banerjee who is visiting India.

In the excitement of taking pictures of such a large group, three other non-Chalupa runners who we run into every Sunday morning joined us in the melee too!

By the way, our run almost did not happen. As we approached the trail, we realized that a tree had fallen and effectively cut off the entrance of the trail (see the picture). Many of us were secretly thanking our luck figuring that we would go straight to Starbucks for coffee and chit-chat. Except that the three youngsters who were leading the pack, jumped off the trail (it was about two feet deep or so), found a way to hunch down and tunnel thru the tree and once they cleared the tree, jumped back up onto the trail.

We had no option but to follow them.

That was a good run!! Has to be one of the largest turnout for the Chalupa group!