Category: sports

Vadodara Marathon was too full of people. I think Baroda is full of Agent Smiths who can multiply into a million Agent Smiths because how else can there be 30 fucking thousand people present in a place like Vadodara for a marathon! But then this is what happens when you have a hundred categories the same day – a half marathon, a 15k,  a 5k for under 19, a 5k for above 19, a 3k for kids, a 0.01 meters for retarded aliens and likewise.

Just like in Hyderabad, the half-marathon group was full of men from Police academies. All of them looked the same to me with their cropped hair, full length khadi trousers and orange brownish coloured canvas shoes. Agent Smiths. There was hardly any place even to stretch in the holding area. There was no toilet that had been erected. Agent Smiths don’t need to pee.

The race was supposed to start at 7 but it started only at 7:45 because the CM came late. The other celebs that showed up were Paresh Baba Rao Rawal, the Pathan brothers who play cricket and the out of shape and full of paunch Kapil legendary Dev. There also was the flying Sikh – Milkha Singh but I had only heard about him and never seen him so he didn’t matter. He wasn’t flying anyway. His red turban was kind of cute though. Finally when Godi’s speech ended, the race began.

The first five six kilometers were terrible. I felt very weak. And I wanted to pee. And since I wanted to pee, I didn’t feel like drinking water even when I got thirsty. I felt like giving up. But then, in some time, I found some Agent Smiths peeing here and there and I joined them. By 10k, I was feeling better and finally like the last time (in Delhi), I did the 21 point something kilometer in about five minutes less than 2 hrs.

I had inspired Hanuman to come along who ran in the 5k category. Ali had accompanied us too, even when he was not running. I am sure he would start running soon. I am very contagious.

I wouldn’t say I lost my way while running today in Ahmedabad. I have never lost my way while running. Nobody loses his / her way when running. You have to be a loser to lose your way when running and loser’s can’t run.

What I would say instead is that I couldn’t take the path that I had earlier marked on gmap. I realized this after like forty minutes of running. So I had to ask for directions. You don’t ask for directions only when you are lost. Sometimes it’s important to be sure. Especially if you are running.

I could reach back the hotel only after one hour fifteen minutes of running. Had I been able to stick to the marked track, I should have reached in 50 minutes. I have no idea how much I ran. The good thing is, I finally ran in Ahmedabad.

I know that I had declared that I would go running last Friday itself. Like an asshole, I just gave it a miss and then next day, I and some of my colleagues were off to Mt. Abu. I didn’t really know Mt. Abu was so close and all that to Ahmedabad but hey, it is! I remember being there a long long time ago when Papa had taken the family on a tour of Rajasthan.  I also remember that it was in Mt. Abu that I learnt what OMNI was. It was a white coloured taxi and I asked Papa what the word OMNI written on the front of the van meant and he told me it was the name of the van. It’s weird why I remember such vague things but I do. I need to dig out my baal-awastha ke pictures from Mt. Abu the next time I am home. It’s been a long time since I have been home. Om shanti Om. LOL – just like that.

I probably would have given running a miss today again had LoLy not called up early in the morning. She called up and told me she was off to Chennai from Bangalore. It was quite some time after six and I told her I found it funny that there was no sun outside. I was thinking more on the lines of an out of a blue ‘solar-eclipse’ but she was quick to make me realize that unlike Orissa, Gujarat was on the west. Finally, decent light showed up only by 6:45. Roads gathered decent traffic by seven. I am shifting my hotel today and I hope that the new running route that I finalize is a little devoid of traffic in the mornings. Let me tell you something about the way traffic moves here in Ahmedabad.

The city is full of intersections. Many cities and towns are full of intersections – so nothing special there but the funny thing about Ahmedabad is that most of the intersections neither have a signal nor traffic police-men/women. All vehicles rush towards an intersection at the same time and yet, there never is any jam or clog. The trick is in the eye-contact. You have to win the first right of way by the sheer intensity of your gaze clubbed obviously with the size and speed of your machine. And the city is so good at it that vehicles seamlessly pass through each other at all the intersections. Even when they don’t actually pass through each other, the effect is the same. I was reading a ToI front page article today that praised the recently introduced BRTS. The article used a phrase that best captures the traffic flow in Ahmedabad – ‘bumper to bumper’.

Alright, before I stop, here is a link to some ‘bumper’ pics from the Mt. Abu weekend trip.

Yo maan! So I ran my second half-marathon (Delhi) and pretty much lived up to my expectation. My expectation was a sub two hours run. The exact timing shall be issued (and so would the pictures) in a coupla days but from what I noted, it took me somewhere between 1 hour 55 minutes and 1 hour 56 minutes to finish the race (21k).

The sweetheart that Neelabh is, he accompanied me (even when that meant getting up in the morning at a bloody insanely time of 4:30 AM) with a tripod and his Nikon to which was attached his latest baby – a Sigma 70-300mm lens. He got this super cool zoom lens only the day before. I picked up a lens myself for my 450D – a Canon 50mm f1.8. Yeah, alright, I don’t really intend to freak out all ya is-there-anything-more-to-a-camera-than-the-click-button folks. So no more lens talk. I shall let the pictures speak.

Bloody 8000+ people ran the half marathon but I doubt more than 500 did it in less than 2 hours. Once again, I shall get back to ya guys when I have the results. I really am curious to know where I stood. Real kick-ass frenzy prevailed all through the run-route! Dilli-vaale kept cheering the runners throughout and flocked the entire route, standing on both sides of the road. In comparison, the Hyderabad run had been so dry. Here in Delhi, they had rock-performers, bhangra dancers, dholaks, a multitude of still and video cameramen and Shahrukh Khan. Happiness was in the air and I loved every breath that I took that morning.

Later in the evening (after the race), I had some amazing time having pasta and beer and conversations and laughs and sparks with a beautiful lady. The nice little dinner, no wait, candle light dinner ( 😛 ), with her in CP pretty much made my day. I was the ‘knight’ in the castle.

For the first time I noticed how much do the metro stations and the metro train-coaches here in Delhi look like carbon copies of their brethren in London. If there was any difference that I observed, it was in the number of passengers. In London, it hardly got crowded while here in Delhi, it was always stuffed. LoL – kick me in my ass if I sound like an ass-hole trying to tell the world how pathetic India is. I like Delhi 100 times better than London man. But more on that later. Some other time. There’s some news here for ya folks here.

The news is: I have been moved out from Bhuabneswar, at least for a while. Miss short-story had her budday the very day I had to leave for Delhi. I was informed about this moving away thing only the day before. So when I called up Miss short-story to wish her happy budday, I could not gather the heart to tell her that I wasn’t going to come back after my Delhi marathon. I couldn’t tell her that I was flying straight to Ahmedabad. So I left her a mail later, telling her about my new plans. I think I should have at least met her before leaving.

Anyway, off to Ahmedabad tomorrow. New place. New work. New life. Crazy life man. Crazy life.

PS: link to pictures clicked by Neelabh on the half-marathon day

My bike still does not have any rack. I need one in the rear over which I can place a pair of panniers. Bro – in Delhi – has been assigned the task of fetching a rack that can be fitted on my bike. They didn’t have racks in Hyderabad when I bought the bike and in a search operation conducted yesterday in the streets of Bhubaneswar, I could find only one cycle shop which again could not supply me a rack that could fit. One doesn’t even find panniers anywhere in India – the only option I have is to get two bags and get them stitched together. Let me do that the coming Saturday.

Morning”s plan was to take the NH5 and keep cycling for about an hour. I did that and crossed 20k. I cycled faster while returning saving myself five minutes (could have saved more had there been no signals) and thus covering 40k in a little less than two hours. I was so hungry that I skipped gymming after that (shall work out in the evening now).

I find cycling a lot less demanding than running. May be I have been cycling too slow. Of course I overtake every cycle that comes my way but then, so far, I have hardly encountered anyone rolling a geared cycle in the mornings – so comparison is not justified. The ones cycling are either students or folks who simply cannot afford any other mode of transportation. Sometimes I think that they need my Trek more than I do – the ones carrying those orange coloured huge plastic crates of milk – the ones carrying hazzar aluminium kadhais and tumblers for selling from house to house. Whenever you feel bad about life, hit the road, walk, run or cycle – and look around. You will find more reasons to feel good about your life than you ever thought existed.

First few days of cycling made me realize how badly I needed gloves. The palm (and especially the right one) started getting all slippery with sweat – badly affecting the grip on the handles. Yesterday I got a pair. I like learning things this way – rather than buying all the mumbo-jumbo in one go. I am sure all of us have seen or known one of those over-enthu rich folks who suddenly decide on joining a gym to get slim and then go ahead and buy a dozen Reebok t-shirts, half dozen Puma tights, an unreasonably costly pair of Adidas shoes, branded rist bands and head-bands and of course – if they don’t already have one – an ipod – all at once – and then they are no where to be found near the gym after a month. That’s definitely not my style. I ran on a borrowed pair of shoes for about an year before I decided I ‘needed’ my own. I rode 65k before I decided I needed gloves. But then, to each his own.

When people like me are asked to develop a strategy for the development of adventure-tourism in a state – they often get lost in their own dream world. This is exactly what I am going through these days.

To be able to advise the government of Orissa, I need to know vatsap in the rest of India – and that means loads of secondary research (alright – Google). My only problem is that when I am say pondering over the possibility of including a rock-climbing schedule in a possible Orissa Adventure Tourism itinerary – I end up jotting up a plan to indulge in rock-climbing myself! Same goes for everything else – kayaking, rafting, cycling, para-sailing, para-gliding, sky-diving, scuba-diving and on and on. I think that by the time I prepare a draft Concept Note for Orissa, I would have another one ready simultaneously – titled – “Concept Note for Vatsap? for indulging in crazy adventure tourism activities without fucking up his job”.

While working on my note, I noticed that Tushar had shared a YouTube video showing him skydive in Houston. I checked out his video and was blown over by it. I decided to check out if such jumps happen in India as well. To my surprise, I stumbled across  skydivingindia that announced that registrations for skydiving were open. I forgot all about Orissa and straightaway registered for a Tandem jump on the 20th of September (yes it’s a Sunday) in Indore.

At 330 dollars this is definitely costly compared to what Tushar had to shell out in US (and given that I would have to shell out additional money just to reach Indore and then return to Bhubaneswar). But then I don’t want to wait till I go to US or NZ to sky-dive – it’s here in India and it’s happening and I am going for it. Anyone wanna join me? Logistics wise, it’s easiest for junta in Mumbai – so if you are in Mumbai and want to sky-dive, all I have to say is: DO IT!

The beautiful thing about September is that it is full of holidays (at least here in Orissa). I mean think of this: between 18th September to 4th October (i.e. 17 days), there are only six working days – isn’t that like insanely awesome? So I need to finalize plans on what else to do after I have sky-dived. So far, a biking (read: bicycle) trip from Srinagar to Leh sounds exciting. From Indore, I can catch an overnight train to Mumbai where I can then buy an MTB, get it packed and fly to Srinagar from where I can commence my journey to Leh. I need to figure out the intricasies of carrying bikes on planes and even before that which bike to buy – but then I have the rest of the day for that. Until then – happy Janmashtami!

PS: Given that September is going to be so hot for me – I might give the Kaveri Trail Marathon (that is on 13th) a miss (I have already registered for it). Can’t spend all my money in just one month – can I? 😛