To LOVE and be LOVED: The greatest thing you will ever do

Everyone deserves to be loved no matter who you are, or where you’re from, or what you do. If you can love, then you deserve to be loved.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a boy or girl, man or woman, black, brown or white, or if you’re gay or straight, bi-sexual or asexual or identify as transgender or just queer. It doesn’t matter how you identify yourself and what your preference is. If you have a pulse running through your vein, then you deserve to be loved.

It doesn’t matter if you are tall or short, what’s your shape or size, or even your length or breath (now please don’t ask me what is being measured). Neither does your ethnicity and nationality and what you do matters.

You are deserving to be loved, even when you are at your lowest, when you’re at your worst, when you’re no longer young and beautiful. When you feel you’re unlovable.

In these moments you especially deserve to be loved.

Yes you can buy yourself flowers. Yes you can right your name in the sand. Yes you can talk to yourself for hours. But then wouldn’t that be more beautiful and meaningful if you could shared this with someone. If someone got you flowers. And talking to yourself even for a couple of minutes (forget hours), is never a good sign.

Yes you can pamper yourself, buy yourself expensive things. But sometimes it’s a bit nicer to be at the receiving end of someone’s love, or even be a giver.

Yes we can take care of ourselves and stand  on our own independent feet without needing anyone else, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But once in a while it’s good to be taken care of.

To love and be loved is the greatest thing we can ever do.

You may be hurting and smarting from heart breaks and heart aches or you just want to give up on love and finding love, never ever wanting to go down that road ever again.

But know this, that love will find its way to you. Cause even though you may give up on love, love will never give up. And just when  you least expect it love will creep into your life and into your heart and surprise and wrap you, hugging you tight, in its arms with delight. And next thing you know it has you all wrapped around its little finger.

You just can’t help yourself and love and be loved, cause the greatest thing you’ll ever do is just to love and be loved in return.

Try a little kindness

If there’s anything you can be  in the world, how about being kind? In a world that’s smarting from hate and whataboutery, how about choosing to be kind.

We all have our opinions and it’s so easy to be snarky, bitchy, curt, all in the name of being frank and in your face and saying it as you see it, being brutally honest. But how about being a little kind.

If you don’t have anything good to say, how about not saying anything at all, cause words can cut like a knife. Words can bring someone down. Words can trigger, words can push someone over the edge. 

Everyone’s going through something to another. Some able to express it others just bottling it all up. Some are able to cope with it, others struggle to make it through the day.

And when they aren’t able to hold all it in, there’s no way of telling how it will manifest itself, there’s no telling what they could do.

So be kind. There’s not telling what the person next to you is going through. There’s no telling what burden they’re caring or what they are healing from. 

You just got be KIND… it doesn’t take too much.

Father and Son: An unspoken conversation

They sat there eating in silence, trying hard not to make an already awkward situation even more awkward. 

The air between them was so rife and thick  with tension that you could cut it with a knife. The silence between them was deafening.

Given a chance they would rather be anywhere but here. But then they had made a promise to her, after she managed to broker an uneasy truce, and so they chose to honour the promise even after she was gone.

Why couldn’t he be like other boys, he thought as he glanced at the boy sitting opposite him. Why couldn’t he just be normal. But no he had to go and be someone different. 

He remembered that long ago he too was once like he was now, wanting to be different, wanting to be someone who would make his mark, someone who would standout form the crowd. But this was not what he did!

He’s still young , he thought, and had his whole life in front of him to do whatever he chose to do, maybe even find a girl and settle down. If he wanted he could marry. But no, he had to go and choose to be something different, someone different. He had to go and make life difficult, make his life complicated. 

Like his wife he too was worried what was in store for him cause he knew life wouldn’t be easy and the world and society wouldn’t be kind to someone like him, in fact it can be cruel to someone like him.

How he wished he would just slow down and be calm, take some  time to think and think a lot. He could  think of everything what he got. He would still be here tomorrow but his dreams may not.

He’s still young and eager and easily malleable, and this was not his fault. But it was not the time to make a change cause there’s a lot he would have to go through. 

Oh only if he could be a normal boy like any other boy, he thought.

As he sat there eating  in silence he felt this uneasiness in his system. He felt uncomfortable. But he had promised his mother, and he was here to honour his promise to her.

How he wished he would just understand, he thought, as he tried to glance to the older man sitting across from him. Why couldn’t he just listen to what he had to say. But when he tried to explain, he would just turn and walk away.

He could understand all his hopes and dreams, but these were not his dreams, it was not the one that he dreamt. This was not who he was. This was who he chose to be.

He knew it would be difficult to accept it but he had to accept it, there were no two ways  about it. 

From the moment he could talk he was ordered to listen, not being allowed to say what he wanted to say, not being heard what he had to say.

This was always going to be same as along as he refused to listen, as long as he refused to understand, as long as he refused to see his point of view. 

This was going to be same old story no matter how much he tried, no matter how they tried to change the narrative.

So they ate in silence, exchanged a few forced pleasantries, a forced hug and went their way hoping they would never have to do this again, but knowing they would do it again cause they had promised her, cause they knew there was a thread, though fragile, bound them together, kept pulling them back to each other.

The Hateful Quagmire

There’s so much hate in the world today. It’s everywhere you go. You just can’t escape it. You just can’t hide from it. Even you lived under a rock, you can’t escape it.

In a world that’s obsessed with its social media presence even a little hate gets amplified a million times.

Everywhere you go, everywhere you look, you find hate in some form or the other. Even the sacred and the holy aren’t spared. Knowingly or unknowingly they too have become the symbol of the hate that we give.  A hate that’s so vile that it makes you sick to the core. That can be triggering.

Even an ordinary and unsuspecting salutation has a hateful and mocking undertones.

Just when you thought the notion of divide and rule was abandoned when the British left the country, it comes back with a vengeance, raring its ugly head. But then it was never ever gone. It has always been there, right beneath the surface, making an appearance every now and then, and more often in our current times. After all you don’t always forget the tricks you’ve been taught, the only thing that’s change are the ones who employ this ploy. 

So now the once victims have now become the perpetrators, and with the elections it’s all the more employed to spread hate and fear.

So rather than talking about what they will do for the country to reduce the economic divide and help everyone prosper, you hear more of hate and speech laced with hate. 

How you wish for simpler time when everyone lived in harmony no matter what religion they followed. 

In the present more complex world there’s this religious divide along with this economic divide. There is this uneasiness and fear due  to all the hate that’s spewed, especially by the high and mighty.

Sometime you wonder how do all these perpetrators of hate live with themselves, don’t their conscience ever prick? Don’t they fear the god that they say they are defending? I am sure there’s a special place in hell for all of them.

But then it’s sad to see so many following them, blindly, with this hate inside them, embolden by the hate speech of those who wield power. And with social media, there’s this outpouring of it that chills you to the bone leaving you disturbed and a bit shaken.

How you pray and wish that these people could actual you some of their brains and rational thinking and look beyond the coloured tapestry that’s front of their eyes.

How you wish you lived in a world where there was no hate, no politicians to leverage this hate, no fundamentalist to fan this hate, no social media to spread it. 

If this was the case then world would indeed be a better place, cause there wouldn’t be any hate to give!

The Mathematical Music

To be honest, when you’ve never been to a concert before, (that’s if you can discount the Whigfield concert that you had been to when you were in college, before your English paper, which . But didn’t quite feel like one), you seize any opportunity to attend one that comes your way. So let’s say this was your first one.

Where others take solo trips to exotic locales, you do solo concerts and movies, the life of a single soul.

As you had always liked Ed Sheeran, so it was never question that you would pass an opportunity to see him perform live in concert. And after hearing about it from your sisters who had been for his show in Dubai, you just knew you had to go. But then seeing the ticket price, caused most of your friends to choose to skip it, including your burgers and fries. Nobody wanted to pay so much just to be on your feet for hours under the sun and coping with the Mumbai weather, just to watch Ed play on a screen, as they felt the stage wouldn’t be quite visible for the people with the tickets that was in our budget.

All this didn’t quite justify the price of the ticket for them. To good extent this rationale also seemed valid to you, after all you are always trying to save though you are never been quite successful at it.

But then there’s also the thing like you only live once and you need to make the most when an opportunity presents itself. Besides there are things you need to do for yourself when for the longest time you’ve been paying EMIs or putting things on hold cause somehow you always found yourself having other pressing things.

So now that you could afford to spend on it, you just went ahead purchased the ticket. Prateek Kuhhad being one of the opening act was just the cherry on the cake.

So you find yourself at the venue at 3. Although you planned to reach by 4 but somehow you managed to reach an hour early, and you are grateful you did.

Firstly, there’s a line to get into the venue. And though it did move kind of faster than the Mumbai traffic during peak hours, it did take its time to get you to where you were supposed to be.

And there comes the second reason why you are grateful that you reached the venue early. To your surprise and delight, you find that you have access that’s closest to the stage. This meant that those who brought least expensive tickets were the ones closest to the stage, and could see Ed and the other performers clearly, whereas the ones who shelled out big bucks had to view him from the screens. 

On the hindsight this was good arrangement as the ones around the stage were the actual fans than those hoity toity ones.

All this made you feel glad that you decided to go for the concert.

But now you had quite a long wait before the start of the concert, spending time on your feet under the unobstructed Mumbai sun. 

So you found yourself amongst a sea of youth, mostly of the fairer sex. An uncle in the between all the youth. But then you are ok with it.

Finally at 5, Prateek and his band took to the stage, kicking off the proceeding the song called CO2, a song you hadn’t heard before but hearing it made you want to go and give it a listen on repeat.

It was beautiful. His voice had this beautiful soothing quality that wrapped you up it in its warmth, making you feel all so light hearted and elated like you just had a shot of dopamine.

And then you heard those familiar chords play, and you know you were in for treat as he began singing Kasoor, a song that you not just hear, but you need to feel it, and at the concert you had to hear it.

It felt surreal, it felt something different something beautiful, not just hearing it live but hearing those thousands of people sing it together with him. It was indeed a surreal moment that moved you (cause the song always moved you and left you with this lump in your throat cause of the memory it holds for you). 

You just wanted him to go on and on and never stop cause that moment felt so beautiful and surreal.

He then sang a brand new song that wasn’t released as yet and he was performing it for the very first time. Sadly, it didn’t leave a good impression on you. But then any song following Kasoor would always be eclipsed by the beauty and awesomeness of the later  song. 

How you wish he would sing the song that actually sealed the deal and made you purchase the ticket (even if it was an Ed Sheeran concert). That song was all you needed.

Alas it wasn’t to be so. He introduced his band mentioned that the next one would be the last of his set list. 

This wasn’t fair. He just performed for 30 minutes and he didn’t sing the song that you came here to hear. Yeah, it was the song that got him on the Obama year-end list, it was no All I Need.

So with Cold/Mess he completed his set list, took a bow and exited not quiet stage left ( what would be stage left on a circular stage?), leaving you a little wanting more and bit disappointed with the brevity of his performance and the fact that he didn’t know how to work the circular stage and for the entire performance had his back to half the audience.

Anyway, that’s that, what’s done cannot be undone. You could only hope that Callum Scott could do better than him.

So once again you had to wait as the stage was frantically being set for the next act to come.

At round six Callum’s band takes the stage. You funnily mistake his pianist to be Callum only to realise your mistake when Callum takes the stage dressed in all white, belting out Lighthouse, bringing the crowd alive that probably kind of hit snooze button during the gap between the two act (or maybe the weather and Prateek did it). 

Whatever it maybe, the crowd was once more alive and on their feet, singing along to Callum’s tunes as he belted them on the stage.

Callum, on his part, worked the crowd, effectively using the circular stage to reach each every end, charming the crowd with not just his music but also with his personality, with his heart.

So whether he was singing tunes that had the crowd  dancing along to upbeat songs like “Where are you know”, or then mesmerised like “Heaven” and “Biblical”. And then his attempt at speaking a few words of Hindi like “Shukriya” and “Main aap say bahut pyaar karta ho” was simply charming. And not to forget how much he loved the city, besides its traffic (now who would love the Mumbai traffic, except if you were in Bangalore).

And then he sings “You are the reason” which causes you to melt, and not just by the Mumbai heat. He dedicates to anyone who’s been in love and love in all its form and not just the romantic form.

Seeing the way he got overwhelmed when he heard the crowd sang along with him probably was the highlight of your evening (and you still had Ed Sheeran to come)

He finally ended his with the song that earned him Simon Cowell’s Golden Buzzer, “Dancing on my own”, seamlessly transitioning into “I want to dance with somebody”. And with that he ended his 40 minutes set list, but in those 40 minutes he won over many hearts (even yours truly), making every minute of those minutes beautiful and count. And he wasn’t even the main act!

So now it was back to waiting for Ed Sheeran to take the stage as the crew quickly and quite effortlessly dismantled the band and got the rotating part of the stage ready, much to yours and those around you delight.

So you once again you had to wait patiently before the main event could start, waiting patiently under the glow of red form the stage and its LED screens, in the Mumbai heat with very little breeze, even though you were close to the sea, a reminder that summer will be soon setting in.

You try to stay hydrated and stay patient, constantly hoping from one foot to another, looking at your watching wondering how long till Ed would take the stage, wondering wouldn’t it be better running outside than standing here on a not so hot night, hoping that it would be worth it. So far only Callum lived up to it and then some more.

You begin to worry if you would soon run out of patient.

7:15 comes and goes and there’s still no sign of Ed. You wonder if he got bitten by the Indian Standard Time, or like Callum he was caught in traffic? 

As if an answer to your question, the screen brings up the timer indicating the minutes to the start of his performance.

By this time crowd were getting a bit restless (who wouldn’t be when you been on your feet for this long in the Mumbai heat). They took to singing songs that were being played over the system, breaking into Blinded by the light by The Weekend. 

They let out a big cheer when the clock came on and began counting down as soon it was 20 seconds to show time.

And at exactly 7:30, Ed took the stage from within the stage, much to the screaming delight of all those there, especially the women. 

You had seen these scenes in countless footage of concerts but it was something else to actually be there in person. At one point you were sure that one of those ladies would throw their bra or panties on the stage.

He effortlessly moved around the stage  thanks to the revolving section, while pyro fireworks and flames went off all around him, giving a feel like your were in a rock concert (cooking those who happened to be close to it).

You anyway are here for the music along with the experience, so you take it all in as part of your concert experience.

You try to figure the song Ed is singing, not because he’s not clear but you don’t know the song. You do like his music and you have  been fan, but you cannot boast that you know or have heard each and every song. But then this doesn’t really matter cause at the end of the day you’re enjoying the music.

You marvel at the fact that he’s on the stage by himself. He doesn’t need a band to accompany him. He doesn’t need any pre-recorded track, so there’s no question of lip-syncing. In fact he creating music on the fly, a musical loop, as he would explain how he would create a loop by layering musical sections over each other, to play in a loop, that would cease to exist at the end of the song (how very Mission Impossible like).

So it’s just him and what looks like a keyboard and his constantly changing guitars. You actually marvel at the fact that after each song his stage help (that’s a terminology for me) comes and give him a new guitar.

What’s amazing is how his energy never dips. He’s like this amazing amazing energiser bunny that goes on and on and on and on without tiring , without boring you (well there were moments where you tried to stifle a yawn, checked your watch, shuffled from one feet to the other, but then you’ll put it down to being one of the senior citizens out there and you needing your sleep). It all made you wonder what was in that drink that he was continuously sipping.

He commanded the stage and enthralled his audience by getting them to sing along (as they even needed a push to do that, in fact the girls next to me knew the lyrics of every song). He even tried to get them harmonise to Gimme Love (a song that you loved and somewhere forgotten that was sung by him) to decent success. 

He shared anecdotes that led to songs like how he wrote Eyes Closed when he lost his friend, or singing one of his earliest singles  in empty bars and Open Mics hoping to be discovered, which initially was a small hit, but when re-released become a hit and got him the recognition that he deserved, leading to A-Team (another song that had made you fall in love with him but somewhere got lost in all his current music).

He had crowd swooning to songs like Tenerife sea, and the wedding first dance staple Perfect and Thinking Out Loud, asking the crowd to put on the torch on their mobile phone creating a surreal moment. You are sure that somewhere in the crowd some guy is proposing to his girlfriend to this song (and as you would learn latter, someone actually did just that).

Listening to these songs made you yearn to share this moment with someone special (and the couples around you didn’t help either as they slow danced to the song culminating into a kiss).

Ed was not always on his own on stage. He got a gorgeous, leggy violinist to join him for Galloway Girl (and God could she high kick and play the violin). 

You also had a couple of Indian artists making cameos. So you had Arman Mallick adding his Indian touch to Two Steps. 

And then you had Diljit Dosanj joined him on stage to perform Diljit’s song, Lover, sending the crowd into a frenzy (as if they needed any reason to do that). So you had a perfect blend of Diljit’s swagger and Ed singing in Punjabi, what more could you want! This amazing performance left the crowd wanting more of this collaboration, and instinctively started chanting for the same. Sadly that wasn’t to be.

For most of the show it was just Ed, his keyboard, the loop machine (a term you coined cause you can’t think of any other name for it), and his ever changing guitar, creating music. However, he did have band when he sang a medley of songs on which he had collaborated with others artists.

So you had a medley of songs from Beautiful People, Let the River Run, South of the Border, Peru, ending it with I Don’t Care (which instinctively had you counting steps in your head).

But that didn’t stop there, he ended it with a song which had written for another artist. So there he was, singing Love Yourself which he had written for Justin Beiber.

Though you are enjoying yourself you start to look at your watch not because you’re bored but because a bit of fatigue is getting to you, and you’re a runner who needs to be in bed to wake up in time for your Sunday long run. Plus you realise that you have been on your feet as long as you took to run the Tata ultra. 

So there you are, the only person in the crowd who’s constantly looking at his , trying hard to stifle a yawn, to very little success.

And then Ed disappears under the stage making you wonder whether this was it. But then this couldn’t be the end, he hadn’t even sung Shape of You yet. 

But then he had thanked people coming from different parts of the country and from different countries. Could this really be it? In which case it would be quite anti-climactic. This couldn’t be it?

And just as you were ready to leave, he appears from beneath the stage in a navy blue kurta with the word Mumbai (in Hindi) on it, to a familiar tune much to your delight and the delight of all gathered there.

Once again the crowd comes alive, and you can’t help yourself but get all caught up in their enthusiasm. You dance and sing and shimmy and do a body roll and wave and do everything you can while standing in place.

Although you were tired and drained by then, you just didn’t want it to end.

But then all good things have to come to an end. 

So after thanking everyone responsible for putting together the concert and for all gathered there, he promised to be back bigger and better. And with that he sang Bad Habits, the last song for the night, brining to close over two and half of nonstop fun. 

So you end a very memorable evening on a flurry of streamers, applauding as ED takes one final bow and disappears beneath the stage.

You slowly make your way through the crowd who are trudging towards the exit, which is quite a long and arduous walk on worn out feet, but walk you must.

But then the soul’s satisfied with the wonderful experience you’ve had  so the feet automatically complies and your heart is filled with the shape of you!!!!

The Loneliest Boy in the World

He could be standing in a crowd

But still find himself all alone

He could go for a dance 

But still stand there waiting for a chance

That would never come 

Cause he was hesitant to ask someone for a dance 

He was the loneliest boy in the world

He could go to a party 

Only be sitting on his own

Cause there was no one there known

And he was too chicken to go up and talk

So he would sit there quietly, uncomfortably 

All on his own 

He was the loneliest boy in the world

He could go to a social and not dance 

He just  stood there and said watched others do

It wasn’t like he didn’t know to dance 

Or he wasn’t a good dancer 

He just had social anxiety 

Of not being able to dance well

And of being judged by the people there

And it would never  be easy for him

To dance with someone he didn’t know 

Only add to the stress to his frayed nerves

He was indeed the loneliest boy in the world

It wasn’t that he was bad looking 

He was handsome and smart

Better than any one at his age 

Fit and lean and pleasant on the eye

He wasn’t chiseled or muscular 

Or someone with a six pack 

Like a typical gym rat

But he was kind and caring and articulate 

Someone who you could take home to mom

Is what they would tell him

But somehow he couldn’t find someone 

To call his own

And when he thought there was something there

It would dry down leaving him a bit of a mess

Lonely and all alone by himself 

A bit overthinking, a bit anxious 

He was the loneliest boy in the world

It wasn’t that he was an introvert 

It wasn’t like he couldn’t hold a conversation 

It wasn’t like he couldn’t dance

Or he couldn’t be a good leader

His leads could be one of the best any day 

It wasn’t that he was creepy or clingy

Or a social butterfly 

But what paralysed him was a social anxiety 

That kept him him from tapping into the confidence 

That he knew he had deep within him

But unable to find his way there 

He tried hard 

He tried his best

To get rid of his title of the loneliest boy in the world 

But somehow he couldn’t shake it off him and so he remained the loneliest boy in the world!!!!

I did it all… but I’m still no Ultra Runner

You got to be seriously crazy to say, almost the entire year, that you would never run a 50k again, and then at the nth hour change your mind and decide to do it all over again.

You got to be really crazy to do the event even after you sleep-ran almost the entire run the previous year.

You got to be really crazy to run an event that starts at 1:30 in the morning when you still have not figured out a way to stay awake in the early morn.

You got to be really crazy to decide that you are ready to run the event just because you did a couple of long runs with some amazing runners training for the event.

You got to be really crazy when you want to do an event because you suffer from FoMo.

You got to be really crazy when you want to do an event just because you are seduced by the thought that you would have run all the distances within the first two months of the year.

Well I am that crazy and I somehow registered and ran the race.

So once again you find yourself at yet another starting line, for the third time this year, within the a period of the first two months of the year (part of the temptation as to why you decide to do this event). For the third  time you are trying to warm up between greetings and clicks and cups of black coffee and bananas and dry fruits. Thanks to your buddy Bijay, you managed to get yourself registered for the event.

As you patiently wait for the race to start off you have these lingering thoughts running through your head, doubts creeping in your mind, causing you to wonder why did you even take up this endeavour. It wasn’t like you had the best of times the last two time you did the event. You’ve even been a sleeping beauty at the last edition. But now that you are here you might as well give it a shot, and this time around hopefully you manage to stay awake.

So there you are, at the start line, eagerly waiting for the clock to countdown to the start of the run. And as it does there’s fireworks and smoke, and off the elite go. Then you have the next wave and then the next, till it’s finally your turn to go. 

So you take off amidst the shower of golden confetti. Well you don’t quite take off, you saunter slowly and steadily making your way through the crowd. Letting those in a hurry to pass you by. You’ll hold your course at a pace that’s comfortable.

You finally find your running buddies, who try to ensure everyone is there and try to find where the missing ones are.

For the first time you are running together with your running buddies. After all, friends who train together, run races together.

You have run with Dyloo at TMM before but by the time you reached Peddar Road you lost him.

This was not really the same. It was as if you were a wolf running in pack with Yogy and Tomcy setting the pace and we, that’s Yash, Kushgara, Ayaz, Satish, and yours truly, keeping pace.

To ensure that the pack stays together and no one gets left behind, cause the strength of the pack is the wolf and the strength of the wolf is the pack (did I just quote from Disney’s Jungle Book!), Yogy suggest that each take a number, and throughout the run, at regular intervals we call out our number so that we know who is where.

And so you’re number six, which also happened to be your roll number in school. 

You are grateful that both Yogy and Tomcy are there to set the pace, to keep the pack in check, to ensure no ones going faster than they should, ensuring everyone is running at an easy steady pace, telling you when to cut the crap, I.e. going in a straight line on curvy roads, when to watch out for potholes and speed brakers and kaccha roads and vehicles.

You run past houses that are all dark with their occupants deep in slumber.

You run past sleeping dogs, who don’t bother themselves to see who’s gone by, who lift their eyes slightly, curious about who are these fools running at this ungodly hour, not bothering to give chase (thankfully).

Finally you reach INS Shivaji, and from there begins your ascend up Tiger hill. You are grateful that the pack, like the everyone else, are tackling it with a walk-run strategy, i.e. walk up the slopes and jog and not quite run when you are on gentle climbs (something you had done last year too thanks to the sage advice from Ajay and Quintin).

As you steadily make your way up Tiger Hill you can’t help get this sense that Tiger Hill is lit up by a thousands of fireflies on an almost dark night.

When you finally make it up Tiger Hill it’s time to run steadily. Though you run slowly and steadily most of the time, but there are slopes that you walk up. 

Although you have your headlamps on, you don’t quite need cause it’s a full moon that lights up your way. And the stars are there too to brighten the inky black sky.

It’s indeed a sight to behold. You silently wished you paid more attention during Geography, or you knew astronomy. It would be something if you could name the stars and their galaxies that lay in front of you.

You feel this sense of gratitude to have this opportunity to run beneath a sky full of stars that have come out to shine for you.

Instinctively you have Coldplays Yellow play in your head “.. look at the stars, look how they shine for you…”

So there you are running beneath a sky full of stars and a beautiful full moon, like fireflies (yeah thanks to your headlamp) in the night sky.

The route twists and turns, rises and falls, and all through it there’s something familiar about it. You’ve run this route before so there’s something warm and familiar, like a hug you need on cool February morning (you realise that though it’s dark, it’s not night but the early morning). 

You are aware that every uphill will be a downhill on the return, and vice-versa.

There’s nothing there that will surprise, except for the fact that the roads are in a bit better condition now than it has been in the past.

Although it’s dark you are familiar with what the place would look like in the light.

So all through the night, ok make that early morn, you are running in the dark, trying to keep up with your pack, especially when you take a rather long break because nature decides to call on you and you can’t help but heed to its call. So you’re constantly playing catch up with your pack. But never do you feel the strain that you are going to fast. You just continue to run and when taking the roll call you just say, ok make that a shout, your number (remember it was 6), giggling whenever Satish annoyingly says 7, cause you’ve got Monica’s 7 in your head.

All this shenanigans manage to keep you awake and lively and in check. Boy are you grateful for it, for running with your pack.

It’s dark all around and there’s nothing much that you can make out by your teeny tiny head lamp, but your grateful for it hides from you the area that you are running through that would have cause you some anxiety if you had seen it in the light of day with the sun overhead (there you see why I say I am not quite the ultra runner).

So you only realise you have passed the turn for Amby Valley when someone actually mentions it to you. By then you have passed u-turn for the 35k . Somewhere in your head you’re wondering how many more kms to go till you come to your u-turn.

By this time you have the Elites and faster runners passing you by. You cheer them and laugh when your friends hilariously comment on the number of jackets that have gone that have been kept for the first 15 finishers.

You cheer them on and cheer on your running buddies who are way ahead of you, somewhere wondering if you could just join them on the other side and finish the race. But hey you didn’t come so far to give up or take shortcuts. So you continue to trudge along, not quite grumpily but thankfully awake and running steady.

By and by you reach the halfway mark and you’re still wide awake. Though you do feel a bit drowsy and a bit of sleep coming along but there’s nothing a splash of water on the face won’t fix. So all the flashbacks from your run the last year and all the anxiety that it induced are all for naught.

You run through the u-turn as your pack encourage you to keep up. 

It’s still dark and world is till a sleep. You continue to splash water on your face to keep awake and keep up with your pack but every time you pour water on your face you have to play ketchup, oops I meant catch up with your pack. But thank god for walk breaks, you just had to run through them and you were back in the mix. But then that also meant you had cut short your walk, you just had to keep focus and keep going onwards.

You once again reach the 35k turning point. This time around you do meet the 35k runners unlike last year when you were at the back of the pack and all the 35 runner had already passed by.

So you meet you friend Pareshji, who’s playing music on his Bluetooth speaker (to think of it, he was actually running the 50k). You pass your friend Meghna and you share interesting she baking talks. You also see your friend Masuma go by running (or was she power walking) strongly. You’re genuinely happy to see all of them and many more running buddies.

So till now there was no signs of cramps, and sleep just made a brief appearance only to be dashed away with a splash of water. However, you begin to feel a soreness in your glutes and lower back. Nothing serious, nothing that would hinder your run. 

It took you by surprise and Satish’s annoyance to find out that the water stations were out of sprays. Finally, your fellow pack member Ayaaz hands you both a spray which you share with Satish and Kushgara.

Although the soreness doesn’t prevent you from running, it does slow you down. So by and by your pack goes ahead and you are unable to play catch up. So you find yourself on your on. Well not quite all alone, you do have Kushagara for company. So you continue to run-walk steady and strong.

By now it’s been a few hours that you have been on your feet. Though you started your run in the cool, dark morning, the sun is slowly and steadily making its presence felt. The inky blue ness of the night sky is slowly making way for a crimson rusty hue. 

Like a veil that’s lifted to reveal the beauty beneath it, so it is with the light of the morning sun. The veil of darkness of the night is slowly lifting to reveal all that was hidden beneath it. And oh what a revelation it is.

Although you’ve seen this sight before, it still takes your breath away. On the east you have the rising sun that’s lighting up the sky with the beautiful river flowing through it, and on the other side you have the moon slowly setting over a town that’s slowly waking from its slumber. 

And you have you who is running through both these sites on your either side. How can you not stop to take it all in! How can you not stop to capture this moment, this sight that you are blessed to witness. You’ll always have that mental picture etched in your memory, but you want to capture so that your can share it on your social media, after all sharing is caring, and you sure want to show off the sites you’ve seen while you go for your run.

They say time and tide waits for no man, and you can say the same for runners. So while you busy capturing the sights, kushagara slowly moves ahead of yours.

So once again you find yourself running on your own. Your pack has gone ahead and you are left back all by yourself. Somewhere you can hear Celine Dion singing the soundtrack of your run “all by myself, don’t want to be, all by myself, anymore!”

There’s nothing much you can do but to soldier on. So you continue to run strongly.

By now the suns up and your little bit anxious as you wanted to be done before it gets hotter.

You patiently continue to run-walk-jog, wondering as to when you would reach the downhill section of Tiger Hill.

You’ve run past bends and water station that have everything but have run out of water, much to your surprise.

You start to get impatient wondering where the hell is that downhill, considering that by now you’ve passed the 40th km with only 10 more.

Although you seem to be loosing a bit of patience you are grateful that cramps and sleep have eluded you this time around and you are grateful to them for it. 

You keep wondering when you would run round the bend and past the Airforce Base to finally reach the downhill section.

Patience is a key here, especially when you are a quicker runner over a short, cause marathons and ultras require you to be slow and steady, conserving your energy when you need it for that final push.

You are glad that though the sun is up it isn’t too hot, thanks to the nip in the air.

You finally run past the Airforce Base and you know it’s all downhill from here. Again you know you need to go down steadily, you don’t want to injure yourself or hurt your knees.

The downhill is a piece of cake, you don’t have to put in much effort and let gravity do its thing. All you need do is run steady.

And just like that you reach INS Shivaji, the base of Tiger Hill. From here on you know it’s just rolling hills.

You check your watch to see how you are doing on time and according to it and the pace at which you are going, which is not fast just nice and steady, you should be done around the time you estimated you would complete. So you don’t have to do anything fancy, you’ve have to just keep running, running, running.

You meet a couple of friends who had done the Atal Seth run the previous week and were now doing a 50 here. You marvel at the craziness that runners do, putting our bodies through the wringer.

You indulge in some chit chat and click some selfies before you continue down those last few kms.

You finally manage to catch with Ayaaz, a fellow member of your pack, who’s slowed down due to cramps. You check on him to see if he’s ok and try to encourage him but you know it and he does too, that its best he takes it the way he feels than then pushing it. So you give him thumbs up and continue to make your way.

And then you see your dearest Shivanna who’s doing his 35. He’s someone who always brings this feeling of joy and happiness. It’s the energy that he radiates. You couldn’t feel more happier to see him go strong and steady. He’s looking fit and handsome as always (he’s your laughing Buddha), there’s no struggle and looks awesome.

You run upto him and give him tight hug and scream “Go Shivanna!”. You give him a thumbs up and not wanting to break his rhythm, or for that matter even yours. So you give him thumbs up and continue you on.

By now you begin to get this sense that you are so close to the finish line. The markers that have being counting backwards from the very start now tell you that you have just a kilometre to go.

You taste that finish line (please don’t ask me how it taste). You can feel it, you can hear it and you can see it (or at least you visualise it in your head). But then you can also feel  your back and glutes that have been tightening. They are not sore, they are just tight (or is the tightness also an indication of the soreness). 

So even though you know the finish line is so close, you need to one final walk break before you go ahead and finish strongly.

You have the runners who have finished their race, walking by the side of the road, who begin to cheer you on.

You take this energy, make your way strongly down the ramp and to the finish line, raising  your arms in ecstasy and giving a fist pump and letting out a joyful scream.

You did it! You completed your second 50k! And this time around you did much better and stronger than your first one. And most importantly no cramps and you didn’t sleep.

You couldn’t have felt more prouder of yourself and at the same you couldn’t have been more relieved that you finally are done with it. You marvel at the fact that you actually went from not ever doing to doing a 50k again!

You collect your medal and your towel and you look around to try to find your pack. When you finally find them, you just collapse to the ground and cover your face with your new towel. You’re exhausted and your back and glutes and hamstrings are all screaming. 

But then this is not the time to lay on grass but go around and greet your friends, hope they don’t ask you for the time you took to complete. 

You congratulate and click pics with your pack proud of their timing (and secretly wishing you could have done better).

You then over to your other group l to celebrate with them (see it pays to be part of more than one group). You are so happy and proud for your friends Shazia and Seema who have had an amazing 35k. You give Seema a twirl, and then proceed to be part of the Seema wala selfie.

And there you have it, you done it all. The pre-race, race and post race shenanigans, you done it all. It’s time now to head back to the hotel and rest , before you head back home. So you say your goodbyes to your friends and hobble to your friend’s car for the journey back.

So with this you’ve literally gone from never ever doing this run again to finally conquering it, all within a span of two weeks and thanks to your pack and great big help from Bijay.

With this you’ve done a Full Marathon, a Half Marathon, and now a 50k or an Ultra Marathon (a week later you would also do a 10k), and with that you run all distances within the first two months of the years. There’s a lot or be proud of. There’s a lot to be surprised about. You somehow, by some crazy logic at managed to do it all, and for that you deserve a pat on the back, cause you’re one crazy fool.