RIFLE RANGE BOY

Fastfood, Amritsar style ©JMatthew There I was clinging on to the side-rail and my dear life as the auto-rickshaw needled its way through the tiny alleys squeezing through the passage with surgical precision that only a neurosurgeon can outdo. Stunts that these fellows can do, even Evel Knievel would fail. They knew their vehicles like the back of their hands as if their machines were extra appendages of their bodies. They do not need a reverse camera to judge the distance to the car behind them. Neither required is the irritating tones of sensors for their work. They just need their car horns. Have honk will travel! They swerve past pedestrians leaving a trail of dust and smoke without a care in the world. The blaring horns seem not a last-minute desperate measure to alert but instead gave rhythm to the rickety vehicle and noisy engines like Illayaraja's percussions accompanying his masterpiece. The automan's joy and pride, his horn, gave warnings of different tones, fr...

So it is yet another run, my personal competitive run #35 since I took the plunge into my first run in 2009. This time around it is the Adidas King of the Road 16.8km run, third time running. As  I was running along the mammoth monolithic man-made structures amidst the mixed affluent and the not so affluent part of the suburbia, I realized that nothing about the race had changed. The wannabe runners with their ' gaya muthusamy ' way of branded dressing and gizmos filled to the brim, heart monitors, sweat head band, logo flashing florescent compression suits, Gel Kinsei (the Bentley of the running shoes) etcetera, etcetera. Even the loud mouthed hooligans with nonsensical hurls and catcalls at the the 15km mark were there this time around. Only this time around, they had gotten their stereophonic bass beating high trebled high fidelity systems to complement their rowdy act! Also in saree So there was nothing new, it was just same old, same old... And as I was running...

After completing two full marathons, looks like there is nothing more to achieve. Everything else seems pale compared to the joy being a finisher in the 42.195km race. Still, life has to go on and the joints have to be spared to last to the dying days - like doing a Fauja Singh at a ripe age. After the KL Marathon, our group of similar minded running junkies seem to find content in our weekly Sunday Bkt Aman runs followed by the thosai breakfast at Brickfields. To break the monotony, a few runs have been lined up for the future over the next few months. First on the list is 'Adidas King of the Road' on 9.9.2012.  Predictably, seeing the name Adidas, one can imagine many members of the brand centric Y-generation coming in droves. Sure enough they landed there all geared up with sports paraphernalia up the brim that would put any every warm blooded marathon running Kenyan to shame. You name it, they have it - head sweat band, arm band for I-phone, head phones for music, compr...

2nd October 2011.... In a bar somewhere in India... "Sorry, Saar! Today is Dry Day - Gandhi Jayanthi - No alcohol today." Well, it was definitely not a dry day for the 10,000 odd runners in the Adidas King of the Road race who were wet drenched with their own sweat trying to outbid their inner naysayers to complete the 16.8 and 10km road race on one the new highways in the Klang Valley called New Pantai Expressway (NPE). The morning started with runners armed with their armamentarium of cardiac heart rate monitors, foot pod pacers, I-pods with headphones and all the necessary paraphernalia, fuel belt (not for rocket launchers, but to fuel their energy and hydration needs) as if they were off to war. After parking their vehicles (not horses or Humvee), all contestants made it to the starting line in front of the mammoth stony structure of Sphinx-like lion-head atop Sunway Pyramid. After being flagged off at 0645h as scheduled, we went to war on foot trying to beat the ch...