Who am I to talk?

“If you are not an idealist by the time you are twenty you have no heart, but if you are still an idealist by the time you are thirty, you don't have a head” Randolph Bourne.

For the last month or so, the idea of corruption and my own position on it, has been playing on in my mind. I have to admit that the quote above reflects to a great extent where I am today as I have three more years to hit forty. I grew up as an idealist, and a very hardcore one at that. The values I imbibed while at school and home were nothing short of being so. Smiles and happiness used to glow on me, while I read lessons related to Mahatma Gandhi or Swami Vivekananda or Martin Luther King. Another lesson I remember was that of Raja Harishchandra which left an indelible mark on me. In all those formative years, growing up in the era of Ramayana and Mahabharata on TV, it was always about either right or wrong. I do not remember of a time when my teachers or parents, taught me about shades of grey. The discussion never ended with – “It depends”!

I wept inconsolably when I was not selected for the under-12 state zonal cricket team, saying things were not fair. I would have walked a distance of around 4 kilometers weeping. The exams one faced at school was all about meritocracy. There was a genuine admiration for friends who stood first or did well, and that respect stays even till today. I wish to believe that during graduation and post graduation this attitude to fairness remained unchanged. There were a few incidents during that phase which reflected this trait. However going into details of that may not serve any purpose here.

But while my own thoughts remained unchanged during that phase (1993 – 2002), I was being exposed to a world which was clearly not a reflection of the text books. My journeys from Trivandrum to Delhi in train spread over 3 days, and the interactions seen with the Train Ticket Examiners (TTEs) were a case in point. I remember having returned from a cinema house in RK Puram, New Delhi, since I was not prepared to buy the ticket in “black”. On another occasion I had a strong discussion with my ethics teacher to re-emphasize my point that “the end does not justify the means and the means is equally important.” There was pride and conviction in what I used to think and how I used to behave.

I entered corporate life in 2002 and in a way also encountered the bigger world beyond the term exams and classes. I believe India also underwent a rapid change. Access to capital improved and many more people got exposed to the changes happening globally. One could not even cling on to the communist ideology since it had long collapsed in Russia and East Europe! I believe living in a different world, made me make some adjustments. However it was never a conscious attempt to remodel oneself. It was more a case of flowing with the environment around you, and making things happen. When I look back, it seems to have slowly developed into the “end justifying the means” attitude. We are all working for the greater good of humanity, and in that process one needs to make a few adjustments, may be give into worldly temptations, and turn a blind eye to certain things.  Perfectly fine since we all know we have the good and only the good in mind! (may be for “ourselves” more and for others a little less) And probably the issue seems to be that everyone thinks the same way and there seems to be no absolute good or bad!

So as things churned through the last 10 years, I realize that I have a mind which is different from what it used to be years back. I suddenly realize that there is a problem when I want to tell or teach my kids, the difference between good and bad. (Without using the word “it depends” of course) I realize that I would like to get things done in a faster way rather than necessarily the righteous way. So when I see the world around me, with the things happening with spot fixing, corruption scandals etc, I do want to react, but I suddenly feel that I do not have the conviction or power in my voice to react as I used to have years back. Over a period of time, I feel I have become confused as to what is right and what is wrong in the context of the nation and the world as it is today!

But YES, I want to go back to as close as to when I was an Idealist, but I know it is going to be far tougher than what many of us think! But I believe I need to start somewhere! And that is where the dilemma begins.

Role Models – My Seniors and Peers…

Since I did not have an elder brother or sister, the role models when I grew up were mostly my seniors and peers. I am talking of a time when there was one TV in a colony and that too courtesy, the Asiad of 1982 when “Appu” reigned supreme. And hence, there was very little exposure to role models beyond the immediate milieu in the form of superstars like we have today.

While studying at my school I used to scamper on to the ground after having a 5 minute lunch, not to miss seeing my seniors play cricket with a make shift bat and a tree as the wicket. Once I had just come back from a visit to my native place, and argued with my parents to ensure that I was on time to go to school just at the nick of lunch time. This was to see my heroes play football in a crowded field! Incidentally I was hit on my right arm by a hard hit swirling football that day, and had to live with a dislocated wrist for the next one month!

While growing up I even started running with a forward angled shoulder just because the senior who was the best in running did that. Then there were the famous dialogues of Dr Faustus. This oft repeated declamation was another attraction to me, and I have practiced this in front of a mirror and closed doors, as I had seen my senior deliver the performance and the audience hearing with rapt attention. I tried doing the same speech in a later competition, thinking I had perfected my senior’s skills but realized the perils of aspirations without adequate competencies.

My peers were another big source of inspiration for me. I remember having changed my handwriting while at school at least twice trying to copy the style of two of my classmates, which I liked. At times, even for dressing etiquettes, there were influences of my peers and seniors. I have at times used the old sling bag, the kolhapuri chappals and the Carona canvas shoe in a certain way, wanting to copy people I saw near me.

I think this trend of imitation based on your seniors and peers, stopped sometime in college, and when external mass media started to have a more deepening influence in my life. This could also be attributable to the lesser age gaps between batches at college and the fact that we had also grownup into adults by then with numerous inhibitions. But to think and recognize that our seniors and peers have been indelible influences when we grew up is remarkable. And like me, there would be numerous others who would have been influenced as well. To think that I myself would have been a role model to many (in whatever way), imparts a greater significance of the roles all of us play while growing up.  It will be interesting to talk to my daughter and find out whether the same streams of thought flow in her mind as well or does the current generation only look at global role models and heroes.

Re-discovering Running...

After running my first Marathon at Mumbai on January 20, 2013 in 4 hours 2 minutes, I had an obvious topic for the blog. Write about the Marathon itself and how I measured up to the challenge. However what interested me more was not that run itself, but the process leading up to that. In the midst of unheralded excitement, many forget the hard work, the motivations and friends who were instrumental in this journey. This article is a snapshot of what transpired in the last one year!

While I have not taken permission from my friends to use their names, I am sure they would not mind the references here. The story probably starts in November 2011. During a visit to London, I was having dinner at Canary Wharf with some of my friends – Vinod, Akhilesh, his wife Meenakshi and my brother Rajan. Amongst many other things, we also chatted about one of our friends, Sreeram, who could not join the dinner.  The discussion veered towards his running, and his passion for mountain climbing etc. He would have done numerous Marathons in the last 7-8 years and was obviously somebody I was proud of mentioning to people when the topic of marathons used to arise! During that discussion, Meenakshi too mentioned of how she was coaxed into doing the Amsterdam marathon, and she ended up doing it successfully in 5 odd hours. This was not akin to any Eureka moment, but I think it set a few cells in my brain thinking about running. The obvious inference was that, there were mortals like me, capable of successfully doing this.

A few thoughts which came to me after that were the following – My own antecedents in athletics while at school and college, were not something to be forgotten about and the fact that I had continued to be in touch with sports in various forms could help in this initiative. The other important thing was having tangible goals in hobbies or activities you pursue. Going to the gym or playing badminton or casual swimming (all of which I had done in the recent few years) resulted in nothing tangible in terms of results apart from the fact that all of it keeps one fit. I was more in interested in something, where there was a finite sense of achievement, which say running a 10 K had. Many would disagree with this approach, but this is a personal view which influences me in many things. Anyways the result was that I decided to try running as an activity, even though I was never a fan and found this to be really monotonous. (in other words a big bore)

So one of the first things, I did was to share this whole concept with my wife Pavithra. I guess at that point in time, she felt it was probably one of my new addictions which I would give a pass after some time. She readily agreed when I said that I wanted to buy a new running shoe. We went to the Adidas showroom and bought a shoe which cost around Rs 5000. It is another story that a discount sale started 3 weeks later where the same shoe was sold at Rs 3000 or so! In December, I also found out the existence of a running group in Pune called Pune Running through facebook and happily enrolled for a 10 K event around the end of that month. With very limited practice, laziness in getting up for a training run and inhibitions of running on road, I could do the 10 K in a time of 1 hour 3 minutes by end of December’11.

From January’12 I started running with the Pune Running group every Sunday at the Pune University. One of the first things I realized was that running was not a simple activity contrary to my initial impressions. There was diversity in people and thoughts, diversity in opinions and views, and diversity in gadgets and shoes! A few of the things I quickly saw around and invested in before I started running 10 K confidently were the following – A Garmin forerunner 305 (~GBP 135), a few dry-fit shorts and tees. For the un-initiated a Garmin forerunner is a watch with a patented technology which locks onto satellites and gives you data like distance, speed, calories and elevation! After your run, you load this data on to your lap top and analyze your runs! (LOL!!!)  The dri-fit material is nothing but polyster fabric, which supposedly dries faster and keeps your body dry through the tremendous challenges you encounter while running. Wasn’t this the same material which we instinctively disliked while growing up!  The Garmin which I bought had Pavithra’s attention aroused about my new hobby. Why on earth would one need such an expensive watch for running was her question. The line of argument continues to, whether the Africans and the other elite runners had Garmins to achieve their incredible feats. It is usually wiser not to argue in such situations and I persisted with that tactical line.

While months passed, my discipline for training also increased. Throughout the last year, the normal time I would wake up was around 5.30 am and on Sundays it would be 5 am. To put the discipline in perspective, I don’t think I have missed out on the long run (for me a run of say 10-20 kms or more) on a Sunday except while I was travelling. With a keenness to show off to people around, I can recount of occasions when I did this at the Cubbon Park in Bangalore once, and another time at the Valentine’s park in London. On weekdays, much to the irritation of my family for making noises during early morning finding my running accessories, I religiously used to go for those lonely runs during the summer and the monsoon. Looking back I think the best part was running with the Pune running group and the people I got to know. Amongst so many of them, was Milind whose discipline rubbed off on me to a great extent and we did a few practice runs together. Right from seeing people who ran the absurd 80 plus kilometers at the Comrades, to listening to tales of people who cycled from one city to another, it all added up in the form of motivation to at least move beyond the 10 K mark.

Slowly I was growing in confidence, and started doing the half marathons. The first official half marathon was a 2.04 effort in August’12 at the flyover-ridden Hyderabad half marathon. Later I did the Pune half marathon in December’12 in 1 hours 50 minutes. I did two more things along with my running, which I thought could help me with the running performance. I went for a yoga course for a month in November which I believe helped me stretch quite a bit and also added flexibility to my body. Along with that since August’12, I also decided to increase my protein intake to strengthen my muscles. Being a vegetarian and also not a great lover of food, I needed to make a significant effort in that direction. This meant consuming a few egg whites daily and seeking the aid of whey proteins available in the market. During the course of training I also found out about 2 other aspects – One, the weight of the shoes matter, which in turn led me to searching shoes on the net and buying a lighter 198 gram Hyperspeed 5 from Asics. The second aspect was the use of energy gels. During one of my trips I came across the SIS Go Gel in a London store and later ordered more of the same through the internet. The gel gives your bursts of speed which helps you run better especially towards the last segment of your HM or FM.

Along the way I need to mention that my child hood friend Anand did some excellent analysis from my Garmin data, and gave me those critical inputs during the last few months to the run up of the Mumbai marathon. The fact that he had run a good sub 4 hour marathon some years back in the US was helpful in addition.  During the last one month, in a period called the “taper” the mind was more at work than the body negotiating the challenges of a 42 km run. The facebook had a big role to play in the run, since this gave the space to inform your friends, and in turn invited some likes and comments, which I used to construe as great motivational factors!

I realize that inspite of having written so much, there are a lot more details and specifics that a runner can write about. That is probably a topic for a more subject specific write up! (if I ever join that bandwagon) However in a nut shell, this is what I did in the last one year – Woke up quite early every other day, trained quite a bit, did a lot of running related internet searches, listened to a lot of gyan, spent a lot of money, and then successfully ran the MARATHON!

(One site lists the percentage of US population which has run a marathon as 0.5% and assuming it stays the same globally as well, I think it was indeed a good effortJ)