Lessons from the Marathon man! It's me (vadivelu voice)

I ran a marathon! I ran a marathon! I mean, it was only 7.5 Kms. Yet this is the longest ever I have run in my life. And yipeee, I'm happy.

Not many who know me after my school days, know me as a fanatic sportsman. I played cricket, Basketball and shuttle badminton at various points of my life at a fairly decent level. And I played during every bit of free time available. I have been to state selections, represented my district and have been in many district level winning teams. In fact looking back my school life had only been sport. I was a sport fanatic, still am! Just that I don't play anymore.

I did not like one bit of the four years in college, just because the college never had good sports teams. Of course there were other reasons for not liking college life, but this is one major reason. I still hate myself for choosing that college; anyways that is for another day.

After college, life catches up with you! Nobody played any sport in Cognizant. Nobody even had time to breathe, leave alone play. Makunda was worse. Civil service days were heady. And then the paunch began to show. Not that I was thin before. I don't think I have ever been the thin one ever. Still, when you touch 30 and the paunch start to show, you know you have not done justice and you could have been fitter.

So 2018, I decided is going to be the year. Many years and many resolutions have come and gone, but this year have started well. I started jogging few days a week. Started to swim again after eons. And then the marathon happened. The reluctant man in me was pushed out to run by the team I work with now. (Shhhh! I actually outran them😜!)

And it was an experience! The younger me, would have quit half way through. Five years ago, I would have preferred to walk and talk with people along the way rather than run alone. I don't quit anymore. The body was cramping badly, yet I told myself, come what may I will crawl to the finish; and finish I did much faster than I even thought.

And so the mind is full of enthusiasm now! What about doing it daily, early morning? Says the mind. I don't know how much more the bruised body will let the mind win! Yet, these days my mind wins the body more often!

May be you need to become old to know that mind winning over the body is all there is to life! How I wish I had known it better then!

The wall!

The wall is perhaps the most inappropriate, simplistic and arguably an insulting name to him. For walls don't think. They just stand there, till a force greater than it can collapse it forever. For, the holder of the egregious nickname, never collapsed! Of course he failed. But always stood up again, taller, stronger!

When I read in the morning that Rahul Dravid is celebrating his birthday, my mind wavered to childhood, for the many days when I tried to imitate him. We learnt to drive like Sachin, flick like Azhar but always defended like Dravid. The front foot well forward, the bat in line with his eyes, dead straight, softest of hands and of course the eyes on the ball. This never changed. Like a well oiled machine, the foot and the bat did its work. Day in and day out.

Dravid never wrote poetry. You don't relate mathematics and poems, do you? For he wrote theorems. Every innings of his had a structured hypothesis to it. The steps clearly in place; the syntax intact; his batting never had conjectures, the theorems always ended with the customary Indian "Hence proved" label.

When Sachin and Laxman were doing their art, on the other side Dravid often stuttered and stopped. The cover drives often went to the fielder. The boundaries were not flowing. Sixes were unheard of. Yet, often at the end of it all, Dravid stood still. The shirt drenched in sweat. The eyes gleaming. Concentration intact. The man in a trance. Till the theories he developed was proven, he never quit.

Happy birthday Jammy; 

What can one woman do?

It is quite a steep climb, careful benji! I told my friend who had accompanied me to do the hill climbing we did in the evening. As we went to the top, the view was nothing less than breathtaking. All I saw was greenery and the beauty of it all. We came back talking about the risk of falling and the calories burnt climbing up.

Even as I was climbing it struck me, that Aunt Ida had climbed that hill almost hundred years ago. She surely saw the beauty and the greenery. But she saw beyond! She saw a medical college there. She saw hundreds of Indian women and men being trained in medicine there. What vision! What foresight! Amazing, I told myself.

It would have been barren land then. It is a buzzing, yet serene and beautiful medical college campus now. It is now the best medical college in the country. Among the best doctors of the world are being made here. People's lives are being changed here. Young men and women come here with dreams and go back becoming change agents of this huge country and of course the world. I'm one of those who was blessed by the vision she saw, as my grandmother was among the first to pass out as a doctor from this prestigious institute.

How did she manage this? When she set foot on Indian soil, women were dying in tons for want of medical treatment. She decided she will train women doctors, unheard of in India before her. Now 100 years later, mostly woman treat the woman in India. Every day, averaging ten thousand people cross the gate waiting to see a doctor. When she decided to begin, all she had was a 10*10 room and a single bed. Now there are 3000 plus beds another thousand to be added. How did she manage this?

Why didn't she just come here as a tourist, take some photograph of the hills and the greenery and go back? Or may be just stay satisfied by her one bed clinic and keep going back to busy Monday morning clinics and praise God for that? Why didn't she just think of it as a calorie loss exercise or a Sunday evening outing and just leave it at that, like I did tonight? That why question keep haunting me.

What a vision? How did she manage to see hundred years afar? Did she have a direct hotline connection with the divine? May be God directly gave her that vision; Or may be she asked the divine to give her the vision! This surely cannot be human, my innermost heart whispered. May be so! May be so!

Are you the small dot in a remote village thinking what can one person do? Or are you the eternal pessimist who thinks we are doomed, like me? Are you the patriarchal society's male chauvinist thinking woman's role should be in the kitchen?

Come and see the vision which Aunt Ida saw! On the top of a hill!
                                               

                                                                        Medical college campus from the hill

Aunt Ida and Vellore during her time

  

                                                     

Thank you for the music!

For all the musical genes in the family, music just did not happen for me. Though I was part of a choir for a long time, I don't hit most of the correct notes! I mean, simply put I could not sing. And not to mention the many attempts at learning musical instruments which never materialised the way it should have, partly due to my own laziness though.

Yet, through it all music did have a role to play in my life. And like any other young Indian growing up in the early twenty first century ARR was one of the musicians I grew up listening to.

Remembering the many times I had sat alone in my room only with ARR and his sound for company and wondered how and why he used a certain instrument and a certain rhythm pattern for certain songs. Those majestic double bass runs in the song "Veerapandiya kotaiyile", the haunting melody of the 'Jeans' theme music humming 'nisarisa', the violin interludes in the villagish folk number of "Poraale ponnu thaayi", the melancholy of "Yenga pona raasa", the guitar rhythm of "New york nagaram" and the many other Rahman specials.

Oh yes, the music did speak. Everytime I heard the "Unthan desthin kural", I could feel the urge to go back home. The zillion times I have heard Rahman's version of Vande Maataram, I have felt passionate about my country. And whenever the "Kaalailyil thinamum kan muzhithaal naan kai thozhum thevathai amma" sang, I felt my mother calling me.  Did you feel a peace surrounding you when "Vellai pookal" was sung? I did! Everytime.

Of course there are many other musicians and music I had enjoyed. from the inimitable Illayaraja, to the Simple and profound music of Jim Reeves, From Amy Grants serenity to the loud sounds of Michael Jackson and Backstreet boys; the Christian Gaithers, the rock show guys "Queen", "Eminem", and a few local musicians like Theodore and the four part harmonies of the choirs I have been part off. Yet ARRs is the one music I have enjoyed the most and the one I go to when alone.

Thank you ARR sir for the music. For I enjoyed your company in the many times of loneliness. Here is to many more years of tamil music I so enjoy. Happy happy birthday