A Winter Evening Date

The chilly night might have been romantic or melancholic, based on one's disposition. That night, it had a dash of both.

Earlier in the evening, I’d met my girlfriend in Indiranagar. The evening was quite unlike our recent meets and was a throwback to our early dating days, in that we had to roam around the streets and spend time in cafes and restaurants – inevitably spending a lot on coffee – and struggling to find seconds of privacy in the city teeming with people and vehicles, instead of spending time by ourselves at her flat, away from everyone’s eyes and ears, watching TV shows or listening to music as we cooked, barely facing any interruption. The change that we faced wasn’t a bad thing, as it meant that we’d go to new restaurants and would spend some time outside. And if I would get to eat churros for the first time - delectable ones, those - I couldn’t complain at all. After starting our course in Gobble up Churros, with food that could be had for dessert, we then proceeded to satisfy our south Indian tongues with some idly vade. Then a short walk later, we found ourselves ordering fancy coffee at a self-proclaimed unique brew café. We hadn’t the slightest clue what a creama Italiano was, nor could the waiters and the barista together explain what it was. When the coffee did arrive, it was an espresso too strong for me, which was topped with cream too bland for me. The only purpose the café served was that it afforded us uninterrupted time together. Time though decided to tick faster, and as the sweet evening came to an end, our time together felt bitterly short, but we had to part anyway.

I took the metro back home. I had taken the metro a few times in the past month and taking a metro still seemed to excite me. The first time I used metros extensively was when I spent an amazing month and a half in Seoul. Maybe because Namma metro brought back delightful memories from Korea, I developed an attachment to this one too. But it certainly wasn’t just that, as the entire system around the metro seemed to be functioning without hassles and I avoided all the drudgery of sitting in a cab or bus enduring terrible traffic. When I looked out of the metro and saw traffic jams or traffic signals, I admit that I’d felt a sadistic sense of superiority. Yes, all those feelings just for taking the metro. Another charm of the metro for me was that I got to see the city that I’d known for all my life from an unfamiliar perspective, which was from an elevated standpoint. The stretch from south end circle to my stop two stations ahead (RV road) was my absolute favourite because it felt like I was sailing on a continuous canopy of trees, looking down at playgrounds and parks, with the moon level with my eyes.

Even as a child, that road used to be a favourite as the arching branches from trees on either side of the wide road reached over to greet each other and ensured that the sky was visible only through a layer of green. During spring, the reds of the gulmohar added to the greens in the canopy and it made for a prettier sight. But times have changed and now the metro stretches along the entire road. I only felt thankful that the sights from the metro were still green and pretty.

I left the metro and turned to another main road as I made my way home on foot. The street was lined with trees on both sides of the road, which rendered the already cool air cooler. The nearly full but waning moon slotted among sparse clouds, most clouds around itself, lit the empty roads, signaling the end of another city day. Mariusz Duda’s deep voice in my earphones sang of a tender heart, and the pensive sax that followed spoke of sorrow turning into strength. Walking alone on the road with nobody else in sight and the lovely evening replaying in my mind, that dark early-winter night felt like a cold one.

The Calming Rain at Night

He wondered if the extra second that it took for him to break his reverie allowed the man to escape. Two gunshots from some distance away pierced through the gloom of the cloudy, still night. Having heard the sounds many times, he recognized the sound of a police held Glock pistol immediately. And in the seventy one seconds it took him to reach the alleys around where he judged the shots were fired, jumping from one roof to another, he had figured eight possibilities for the gunshots in that area at that ungodly hour of 2am. The thought if there ever was a godly hour also had crossed his mind. But what was at the forefront of his thoughts was the worry that out of the eight possibilities, only one of them involved the shots being fired from a policeman and he’d assigned that a very low probability.

A very quick surveillance of the alleys, still from rooftops, couldn’t reveal the nature of the crime that he suspected to have been committed. There were no policemen around, and even from his vantage point, he hadn’t noticed a speeding vehicle or a dispersing crowd. He couldn’t spot a burglary, nor could he spot a corpse. Intercepting the police radio, he figured that the detectives were on their way. He didn’t have enough time to scour for the ejected shells. He didn’t need to, anyway. As always, he’d get the results of the forensic firearm examination through his friend in the force.

Retreating into a dark corner of the roof on which he currently perched, he began the evaluation of the seven remaining theories. Three of those theories were around the mafia that was speculated to be building around the Congressman Theodore Koppel. It had taken him months of research to see the connections between the goons and their employer. His interrogation methods still yielded better results compared to what the cops could achieve, as his name still breathed fear. These methods aided him to see the thin threads connecting the various crimes to Koppel. The evidence he’d uncovered was certainly not sufficient and barely admissible in court. Yet, there were patterns that he couldn’t ignore. And today, he’d need more evidence before he could theorize further.

As a light drizzle set in, he hoped to hear the police sirens soon, before the scene of crime was washed clean. Even after all these years, the sound of two isolated gunshots rattled a deep nerve within him. Sights and sounds from his childhood had started resurfacing, igniting a sense of fear. The pattering of the raindrops though, adding to the ebbing din of the city and the wailing blues of the guitars he heard from the house below served to compose him. He felt the fear turn to anger, and the anger soon turned to determination. The city had to be cleansed. And now as the rain grew strong, he’d do just that.

The police sirens in the distance announced the arrival of the police. Through the intercepted feed, he had gathered that homicide detective James Hardy was on the team, and so was forensics expert Irene Lawrence. Both were new to the city, but they came with great repute. He knew of Hardy’s resolute work in the Todd double murder case which had brought him fame, while the untiring Lawrence’s temerity and keen observation skills had established her as the best among the forensics detectives. Mentally he made a note to thank the Commissioner for bringing in the best detectives to the force. With them on the case, he was certain of quick progress. He felt calmness arrive, as the rain beat down on the city and the detectives got to work.

Every night, as the tired city turned to find some rest, his prowl started. He had salvaged the city nights from thugs for years now. The night belonged to him. His was a sight that spelt terror for the unlawful, a sight that caused their knees to shiver and crumble. People still spoke of him in hushed tones, their voices contagious with fear. And for those who deserved his care, his reign of night was calming. Yet, the unlawful didn’t stop breeding. They sneaked around the city like roaches in the dark. They were the city’s stench. And they would continue to breed if someone didn’t put a stop to it all. He’d be relentless until he uprooted them and weeded them out. The city would one day be clean. The city would one day be glorious.

Commissioner Gordon’s men continued their work in the torrential rain as the Batman spread his cape and leapt to another rooftop to follow a lead in a different case, vowing that he’d keep Gotham safe. He would take Gotham to glory.

Run for the High of Running

I could hear my thumping heart as I stretched all my limbs at 4:45am that day. I was taking extra care to ensure that all my muscles were alive and awake. My head was buzzing with the thoughts of what potentially could be in store for me over the next few hours in the lovely, tree filled trails of Auroville, for I was poised to take part in my first ever marathon.

My training over the last few months hadn’t gone according to plan. 25km was the longest that I’d ever run, and that was over half a year ago. In the previous month, I’d run only on Sundays and I couldn’t do the 30km run that I’d planned on one of the days as it coincided with Pinkathon (due to which Cubbon park was closed to the public and that’s where I run). My total mileage over the previous month was around 80km and I wasn’t consistently doing my stretches or workouts. Despite the insufficient training, I found myself starting the marathon with a time target of 5 hours.

I suppose it was my enthusiasm which made me believe that 5 hours was a realistic target. It was an enthusiasm that grew through the previous day. The sight of the trees and happy memories of the trail as we entered Auroville on our bikes only added more fuel to my zeal. I like to believe that my enthusiasm was contagious; if not contagious, at least it was evident to the nine others in the group that had made the journey from Bengaluru. On the day of the run, I woke up promptly to my alarm at 3:30 and was so restless that I felt it fit to start running right then. And a little over an hour later, close to the start line, my excitement had reached a zenith.

Just after 5am, the run was flagged off. We were all given small torches to help us navigate through the trail. And in the fading darkness of that starry dawn, among the trees, with the cool air standing still, on a slow trot, I had started a unique journey that would take me to a never before run distance, testing my physical and mental resilience; I had started my first marathon.

As soon as I started running, there was something in me that kept me at a slow pace, despite my enthusiasm and urge to run. I wanted to maintain a pace of 7:00 minutes per kilometer for the first half of the run, but my body suggested that I continue at the 7:30 pace that I’d settled into after a kilometer. Vishwa and I, running next to each other, couldn’t help but remark how this slow trot through these trees awaiting the day’s first light was truly a joy.

Vishwa and I discovered that we had an incredibly good rhythm going as we maintained the same pace without feeling tired. After an hour and twenty minutes, we’d covered a fourth of the distance. As the full marathon is run as two loops of 21km, this quarter distance point was when we started seeing distance markers reading 30km and above. Everyone who’d run a marathon had told me that it’s at 30km mark you start wondering why you’re even running. I found that baffling as we’d be so close to the finish then and I couldn’t wait to experience it for myself. As the day grew, we continued running together, exchanging words of motivation at every distance marker and revelling in our steady advance. However, we slowly drifted apart as we approached the end of the first loop. And as I saw the distance marker read 21km after a few minutes over 2.5 hours, I let myself have a moment of small triumph. I felt adrenaline coursing through me and I increased my resolve to run the same distance again.

I found that my pace was gradually dropping and from the 26^thkm, my slide started. I hadn’t run a step beyond 25km previously and now every step seemed to be take a lot more effort than before. Not knowing what to expect, I thought I would be able to run the rest of the distance at this reduced pace of over 8 minutes per kilometer. My mind started recalculating the time I’d need to finish the run at this pace and I figured that 5.5hours would be the realistic target. To give myself a little boost, after 27km, I decided to turn to my music for help.

As soon as I plugged in my earphones and heard Dan Tomkins shout “let me burn” (Evolution by Skyharbor), I felt aggression in my veins as I vehemently agreed with him on the burning part with a considerable amount of headbanging. The music player next turned to Riverside’s Time Travellers and Mariusz Duda’s voice made me think wistfully of the times when I was a kid and innocence was untouched, moving me close to tears. Next when Patrick Watson sang “ain’t it feel right? Ain’t it feel nice?” I was sure he was talking about my run. And I thought John Mayer was an unheralded genius when his song proclaimed fear as a misunderstood friend. Although the songs I listened to made phenomenally more emotional impact than usual, they didn’t improve my pace.

I noticed that I was taking over 10 minutes for every kilometer. Wearing a Garmin then seemed to be a terrible idea as I was tempted to look often at it to see if my pace got any better and given that that didn’t happen, it caused me much consternation. Around the 33km mark, I couldn’t see any runner ahead of me and loneliness seemed to be adding to my woes. At another point, I wondered if one of the distance markers were missing coz I’d run for a long duration and hadn’t seen that distance marked yet. But after running a little longer, when I saw that distance on the next board, I too, like others, wondered why I was running still. My legs wouldn’t respond as usual, I felt a faint pain at the top of my foot, and my mind wouldn’t stay focused as usual, as the gruelling nature of running over 30km was revealed to me.

Going through all this, I realized that there was only one way to approach this: that was to think about nothing else and run at whatever pace I could. That way it would be mind over matter. And I’d still enjoy the run. I then listened completely to my body. I ran as much as I could, walked where I couldn’t. Every cheer at the aid stations brought smiles to my face, invigorated my patience. The new found mental resilience carried me through, at a slow and unsteady pace, to the board that read 40km. Then I seemed to find a new physical resilience too.

My pace picked up, my excitement grew again. I was nearly there, at the end of a marathon. My body seemed to cooperate despite the faint pain, tight muscles, and exhaustion. The board that read 41km released some more energy in me. I couldn’t understand how, but I could run like I did at the beginning. I left the road and entered among the trees for one last time, as the trail turned left. I ran through the trees and emerged on to a clearing. The finish line was in sight, just 200m away. I sped. As I saw my friends standing beyond the finish line cheering me on, I sprinted with everything I had, arms out wide embracing the occasion. The moment I crossed the finish line, I was drowned in ecstasy and in relief. I had run a marathon.

I stretched my sore limbs again for a while as I let the feeling sink in. The high I was on right then was incomparable. All my struggles in finishing a marathon left me thinking about how we have descended into a state where utter competition drives everything, leaving us no time for the proverbial smelling of flowers by the roadside. While there are people who thrive on that, and I thought that I was one of those, I’ve come to realize that the smelling of the flowers, for me, gives me more satisfaction. I had timing expectations at the start of the run. But as the run wore on, I realized that I was running for many reasons, and timing wasn’t on the list. I ran under starry skies allowing fascination about our place in the universe envelop me, I ran under the shade of the trees breathing in their exhale only, I ran trampling the fallen leaves, I ran on muddy roads with the dust rising on every step, I ran becoming aware of my limitations, I ran realizing I can push my limitations, but most of all, I ran because it moved me like no other experience. I ran for the joy of running, for the high of running. 

And I Went West on a Cycle

Tatte idly for breakfast is a swell option on any given day. When you are one among the 9 cyclists who have cycled a minimum of 30km on a chilly December morning from Bengaluru to Harohalli, a breakfast like this is an absolute delight. With our muscles just about warmed up and our minds well made up for a ride that would take us to Mysore that evening, 16 tatte idlys topped with a wad of butter, and 22 uddin vade and maddur vade were devoured in no time among the nine cyclists.

Manish, one of the riders from Bangalore Bikers Club riding with us, had found the first breakfast place for us. I say first because it was the first day of a 6-day ride along a route charted to take the riders from Bengaluru to Mysore to Madikeri to Kalpetta to Ooty to Mysore and back to Bengaluru. Riding over 100km on each day, the ride would total more than 700km. Attempting this whole ride, along with the aforementioned three, were Santosh and Sriram (who hadn’t joined us yet, and unfortunately couldn’t ride beyond Mysore due to unavoidable circumstances). An exam restricted Vasanth until Madikeri and a wedding restricted Vasisht and Varun until Mysore. Along with Jineshwar, I was the only other rider in the group who hadn’t done long distances yet.

My cycle was a mere week old and had seen only 18km of riding; the trip I made to decathlon and back for all the cycle accessories was the only ride on it. Despite lacking prior long distance cycling experience, I had backed myself to ride until Madikeri, a distance of 260km over two days, with the second day poised to take us through some tough inclines on the Western ghats.

As we were finishing our breakfast, another customer to our breakfast place asked us where we were headed. When Vasisht told him our final destination, the incredulous response of “Ooty na?!” had all of us in laughter! I wonder how he’d have reacted had he known that we were going via Madikeri (which is a detour from Mysore). Townsfolk everywhere seemed to be fascinated by this group of riders, who were riding what must have been to them fancy cycles, and wearing fancy attires of reflective jacket, helmet, and sunglasses. Later that day, while riding on towards Mysore after lunch in Malavalli, someone having his curiosity raised by seeing a few of our riders already, stopped me to ask where we were headed. The next day, a goods auto decided to ride slowly next to me to ask about us. Again on the second day, when I’d stopped for a tender coconut break, one of the people sitting under the shade of the thatched roof of the small shelter observed - what he decidedly thought was irony in life - that people like him desired motor bikes, while we desired such cycles.

Group of nine riders on fancy cycles and wearing fancy attires.

Among these reactions, the best always were from the kids. I had a conversation with a couple of kids, one of whom owned a cycle, near the same place where I had the tender coconut break. I asked the kid sitting on the cycle, “ಸೈಕಲ್ ನಿಂದಾ? (Is the cycle yours?)”

He replied, “ಹೌದು. (Yes.)”

“ನನ್ ಜೊತೆ ಬರ್ತಿಯಾ? (Will you come along with me?)”

“ಮಡಿಕೇರಿ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ದೂರ ನಂಗೆ. (Madikeri is a little too far for me.)”

As I rode on after this conversation, he sped by with his friend seated behind him. The moment they were ahead of me, the kid on the carrier lifted his hands as he rejoiced overtaking me!

When I was riding alone on the inclines of the ghat section, a bunch of kids asked me where I was going. When I said Madikeri, I heard the entire bunch go, “Come on anna, super!”

We also happened to ride next to a school that apparently had just ended for the day. There were a lot of kids with cycles, just pushing them along, walking with friends. They obviously needed the cycle to reach school on time, early in the morning. Now they were in no hurry to go back home. Why would they want to part with friends so soon?

Kids everywhere mostly greeted us with cheers and shouts of “ಅಣ್ಣ (brother)!” Raise your hand, and they will cheer more loudly for you. These kids got me thinking if I was having enough fun riding, because they seemed to have a lot more fun just cheering for us. Whether we were riding under the hot sun or were being careful to avoid the traffic, seeing kids cheer for us always made me smile and I always raised my hand for them.

Even though such incidents could infuse one with enthusiasm, riding long distances can prove to be an energy draining affair too. An injury forced Jinesh back from Mysore. Vishwa’s cycle had a flat tyre on the first day and broken spokes on the next. The blistering afternoon sun forced me to take more water breaks than I’d intended. I had to ride with a stomach ache for over half the distance on the second day. As we got closer to the ghat sections on day two, the roads became narrow, which meant more vigil on our part was needed. Although the ghat sections themselves were beautiful to ride on, we had to watch our pedal to stay away from the traffic coming from both directions and the fact that it was dark made it more difficult. And despite being mentally geared up – literally geared down – for the inclines of the last 14km to Madikeri, I found myself huffing heavily to make steady and slow progress. When I was on the edge, what perhaps irritated me the most were the badly timed speed breakers! A speed breaker on a downhill meant that I couldn’t build great momentum and one on an uphill meant it slowed down an already slow rider. When the riding got tough, I sometimes motivated myself by reminding myself that every next pedal took me to a personal best distance.

Just before the inclines to Madikeri got steeper.

On both evenings, we reached our destination with tired legs, but with triumphant minds. I personally felt more elated in Madikeri, as I’d completed a grueling climb that had me panting loudly with every pedal. And given how much tougher the Kalahatty climb on day 4 was expected to be than this, I also felt satisfied in not carrying on. And reflecting on the ride over the two days, I kept going back to the sunset I witnessed on the way to Mysore.

And we'd made it to Madikeri!

The sun, a little to the left of my view, had started sinking behind a small hill. Emitting the last red hues of the evening, the sun was setting quickly, with heat also sinking along with it. There were a few trees by the road and the traffic was moderate. Soon, the sky was bereft of the sun. I was sailing peacefully on the roads, chasing the already set sun.

PS: for a day to day account of the full 6 day trip, read Santosh's post here.