Forty Days, Three Races and Two Weddings Later...

Over the past month and a half life for me has been all over the road, in airport terminals, in strange places and and in strange beds and I am only now beginning to put the pieces back together. Back to back footraces, weddings, work pressure and a steady sleep deficit has taken a toll.

Now I am looking forward to a month of quiet and no travel, and a dear old friend visiting me before my first ever marathon. Boy am I excited!!

Despite my training going for a toss in November, my running's gone up several notches – I ran the Bangalore Ultra in mid November, the Delhi Half Marathon in end November and the Goa River Half Marathon last Sunday. I managed a personal best on the half-marathon in Delhi shaving off 22 minutes from my previous, and ran another one couple of weeks later to settle on being a 2.10 half marathoner for this year. Next year I intend to breach sub-2 barrier for good. Between running long runs from Goregaon to NCPA, I have become more confident about 20/30+ km distances.

Not to say that I don’t get beat up, but just that I can take the beating with a smile nowadays.

So finally took a short break this time after the race, and hung back in South Goa with some of my runner buddies. Two days of eating snapper and prawns, sleeping eight hours, drinking wine and swimming at Colva seems to have done the trick of cutting out the lag.

Toying with the idea of getting a custom domain for my blog, and other home improvements but lets see how they work out.

Looking forward to uninterrupted blogging through the last month of the year.

P.S.I spent some rushed time hanging around in my old campus in Delhi, with some of my good friends. Even if it was a small cup of tea, it felt great sitting in the dhaba and taking a stroll down memory lane, however short.

We Laugh..

...and,
the smile drags on, like a wrinkle on your pretty face

like green leaves in a cold cold dark Delhi winter

something that's outlived its purpose.

Like us.

Like the suffix no one gives a damn about,

and the windows which remain forever closed.

Atleast you cared enough, 

to fake a laugh.

(Thank you)

Dopey!

It has been more than a month since i blogged, and so much has changed in since then till today. Its almost like i hard booted my life, without the unpleasantness and the jarring.

I have always had this nagging suspicion i have been an exotic sort of a closet addict - my drug of choice keeps changing. I loved chewing gum and collecting the cricketer cards that came with it till the day i kicked the habit, i was absolutely into re-reading Tolkien in college till i found little time for it, i was absolutely into my girlfriend till we broke up, playing football and partying when i was in Delhi for two years, etc etc. The list of my misdemeanors and fetishes go on, and you basically get my drift. Right?

Now for the past two months i have been doping on running, and through some of my running buddies i have been introduced to a new side of the city i never saw - the lush green forests and rolling hills in the middle of Mumbai. Talk about hallucinations, and now imagine they are real - those are definitely the best kind. The coffee tastes different, just better. So does the occasional pizza and beer. The longer distances have started seeming shorter, and since i run at dawn the days seem to have more hours than the twenty four.

An unwitting casualty has been my blogging, especially since my blogging ethic was already quite suspect. Since i try to pack in two longish runs on both weekends, on top of the usual workload and socializing there remains little time to actually do some writing.

But I have laid my hands on two books - one of which I am reading right now - The Thousand Autumns of De Zoet and the other, a graphic novel, which I am greedily eyeing every now and then - Habibi by Craig Thompson. Maybe I will try a book review or two next..

On Nothingness and Nothing else...

I just ran my first above-five miler on the roads around my house in about three months. I am drenched in the thin leaky drizzle that Mumbai seems to be blessed with these days, my shoes are filthy and soaking wet and i think i will catch a cold.

I am sure I will catch a cold!

But I still can't help but wonder how these runs seem to repeat a pattern. Since i barely warm up before my runs, my lungs keep screaming for me to stop in the first few minutes. After some more time when I settle in, my legs start to hurt and i start thinking of taking the first walk break. And somewhere beyond that, suddenly something clears up and everything else clicks into place.

You don't feel your legs falling on the ground, you forget about the pain and just kind of drift off..into nothingness. You don't think about the minutes ticking by or the bend in the road or the sweat on your forehead..you somehow simply exist by the rythm and sound of your breath.

Frankly, i think too much fuss is made about finding oneself - losing yourself feels better (and right) somehow.

Coffee, the Cliche and a Curtain Call

I always knew coffee was addictive..i am only finding out how addictive coffee shops can be.

As I write this i am sitting in the crowded food court of the mall next door to my house, sipping on a Gloria Jean's cappucino..so i have some experience. I finished office work last weekend, paid credit card bills and sent emails yesterday and now I am blogging here.

I am the cliche...the guy who sits around at the coffee-shop with his laptop. I never seemed to understand him before..now i have become him.

As to my changed blog title - the morbid soul has been around for some time now (spreading cheer, candyfloss and sunshine..you get the drift?) and I think it's time for a gracious exit. I am still as morbid, but its less of 'me' after four years of intermittent blog posts, unremarkable verse and memories.

I definitely plan on writing more about running (duh!), my office and the people I meet. The morbid stuff will still be doled out in bite-size pieces. As Kierkegaard so cleverly put it - "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

P.S. I think I am going to cry :) ...and off I go to get my cappucino refill.

The Dogtown Chronicles No.2 : The Prescript

P.S - this is actually a prescript for later posts.

I think I need to talk about my work more often.. my work-life or the lack of it. Considering that I might end up spending roughly 14 years working (assuming i live to retire at 60), i think this post cannot be early enough. 

In it's own way Dogtown has been kind to me so far, and the occasional rant maybe even things out. I guess my heavily layered cynicism will obscure the fact that I actually like my job, ahead of the ones I might have been doing otherwise..and unlike many and fewer still who will actually admit, I actually have a nice boss. 

Perspective first! Contrary to everything they tell you or read about in newspapers, working at a brokerage is far from a Sunday holiday camp. People get fired most unceremoniously, and they might just be the luckier souls. The paycheck claims more than its fair share of your life and holidays. 

To add to that I work in research, which in the world of high finance has as much oomph as a carefully pickled cucumber. And judging from evidence at hand, a cucumber's probably cooler as well.

I work through oil spooks, nuclear spills and scams - carefully churning out pages of research notes and strategy recommendations, which i'd believe get promptly consigned to the posterity of online documenting hosting sites and workplace dumpsters. Sometimes we get queries, commissions and other happy stuff.

Did I mention that all of Mumbai's skies seem to open up when i travel to work these mornings?

Haiku from a room under the roof

My feet feel so tired,
from hours of sleep & standing still.
My beard looks funny too.

Back home, I miss the rains
and salt-crusted winds of Mumbai.
Can't wait to curse them, on my return.

I like the mad people sometimes,
when I understand. The ones who make sense
all the time, less so.