18 August 2013

Sunday morning run/skid/wade

5 mile run in the morning in Fowler Park by myself. In my new “in-your-face-neon-green shoes”. Even the rabbits by the trail stared at me and were shaking their heads in disapproval 🙂
Btw, when I said I ran 5 miles, I meant I ran half the distance and skidded and waded for the other half. The trail was very very wet and there were some big patches of water.
Amitesh ran in a different place but we hooked up for coffee in our normal Starbucks later.

27 July 2013

Ami ekhon boro hoey gechhi (“Now I have grown up”)

Broke every rule, convention and socially accepted behavior today and went out to run in heavy rains in Kalyani. And dragged my brother with me too!! In fact, we had dressed up for our run and then waited till the rains would start before getting out.
All those years of childhood that our parents would not let us play in the rain…. today was the day we had been waiting for to take our revenge together…. Parents kept complaining (the usual “Thanda legey jaabey” – you will catch a cold) – but now we are grown ups. So we could afford to ignore them!!!
It was just too liberating to be able to feel the heavy rain falling on our skin as we ran 8K in the empty roads. Everybody and sundry was staring at us from the shops, houses etc as we weaved thru every single street possible in the neighborhood. We also stopped at a tea stall where multiple people offered to give us a dry spot to sit in – but we just stayed in the rain and enjoyed our tea.
Finally, came back home and simply sat down in the rain for half an hour. My ever concerned sister got us some steaming tea again!!
Sitting in that rain together with my now grown up brother making idle chit chat we asked ourselves – What good is growing up if we cannot decide not to grow up? 🙂
“Ami tobu chhoto-i hobo, seta-i amar ambition” (“I just want to stay a kid and that is my ambition”)

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11 July 2013

“But I have promises to keep…

…and miles to go before I sleep” ( Frost)

Last year Madhumolli (my friend from school days – one of the few that just could not stand me – but that is a story for another day 🙂 ) excitedly told me that her daughter (a year younger than Natasha) had started running. Even more excitedly, I called her daughter up and before thinking much, promised to run with her within one year.
Managed to grab a train after meetings in London today, haul it to Slough, put in a 3K run with her and turned around immediately to haul back to London. We even managed to get her dad to run with us half the distance!!!
Awesome feeling to keep a promise!! Even more awesome feeling was to keep up with somebody one third my age on the running track.

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7 July 2013

Sunday run

All our Bengali friends are on vacation for the long weekend. So Amitesh and I decided to run the hills around his neighborhood. As always the uphill was difficult but the downhill hurt lot more. 5K later, we sat out in his porch to enjoy some home brewed coffee!!

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5 July 2013

How often does this happen?

Yesterday, while climbing up Murray Rd from the Falls, I heard somebody yelling my name. Sure enough, Aabhas Chandra – a colleague from long past – a decade in fact – had somehow managed to recognize me in a crowd thru all the changes I have gone thru in that decade!!! Both of us were in a hurry at that moment – so we scooted off at that time after exchanging pleasantries…
And then we got together this morning in the one way I know how to catch up with long lost friends – we ran for half an hour in front of the Niagara Falls and then grabbed a Starbucks!!!
Evidently, the arcs of lives meet more than once!!!

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