Run the Marathon

Life is fortunately very full of surprises. Nothing much was scheduled to happen this weekend and so it almost turned out. It was a weekend to lounge away in the luxuries of my aunt's house, and satisfy my palate with food that qualifed under "Very very tasty". Saturday evening introduced me to a family invited by my aunt for dinner. The family comprised of two cute little boys, aged 3 and 5 and their parents, Indians and Bengalis based in Boston to boot. The kids' dad was in charge of handling the boisterousness of two young boys and he seemed quite up to the task. And that's because he was a two time marathoner.

This very atypical Bengali told me that he had taken to running only after coming to the US but he was an avid cyclist when he was in India. I guess that's where his stamina came from helping him to overcome the gruelling 42 km (26 mile) challenge. He had completed the Boston and the New York marathons in years past, and was shooting for the Chicago marathon this year. That'd leave him just the Berlin and London ones to cover amongst the great marathons of the world. The Boston marathon, he said, was flat along most of its distance before the runners come to mile 20-21.5 where there is a tremendous steep incline to take on. No wonder this was appropriately nicknamed "Heartbreak hill". A number of participants falter in this final test so close to the victory flag. The marathon is one race where the "Winning is not everything" maxim can be applied.

I talked to him about my brief flirtation with running. During this unique month of my life while in training at ILP Bhubaneshwar, I had taken up running with a vengeance. I used to jog/run to our gym about 2 km away, work out and then run back. I found that once the pain in the first couple of days of running was put up with, this was the most sensational experience ever. The rhythm of my feet and the quiet calm of the Bhubaneshwar outskirts (near the famous Nandankanan zoo in fact) had got me really addicted. And in the mother of all coincidences, it turned out this was the same road that my recent acquaintance had used while he was preparing for the Boston marathon. He was in Bhubaneshwar on a work assignment and this was the road where he set up the rhythm that'd see him through the distance.

Wow! I am in awe of the mental strength required to do something like long-distance running. A perfect combination of will-power and super-human stamina is called for. It entails the sacrifice of smoking, cultivation of intense discipline and regular practice. It is also the greatest challenge a man can set up for himself and find real satisfaction on achieving. I never really wasn't into any physical exertions too much, but running felt like something special, something primeval when your shoes crunch in a hypnotic beat on the open road. Am I reading way too much into this remarkable co-incidence? Yes, I am but even a fantastic dream never cost anything more than maybe a little wasted time. In due time, leading a life of ascetic discipline for an implausible target, why not? Why not run the marathon?

Chasing Cars

I've finally managed to do it. I've bought my first original MP3. Off Amazon, I paid the grand amount of 0.99 dollars for Snow Patrol's "Chasing Cars". It's a particularly addictive number because it is so incredibly sad somehow. Not the dopey, high as a kite sadness of a Floyd number, but a more real everyday sadness, a mild fever that dogs you through the day, incurable because of it's lack of outward symptoms. 

The band, their site says spent 15 years in the dusty backhalls of music superstardom and in the stifling grip of a niche audience before getting their due in this monster hit. Would they really feel the drop in the ocean of money that their music now is, my own hard-earned 99 cents? Will they ever be grateful for that extra dollar that they earned? I don't really care. Their story is inspiring in so many ways. An artistic creation takes so much out of a person, it's like giving a pound of their own flesh. For long, I have regretted being amongst the cheapskates who'd gobble up anything if it's for free but wouldn't be caught dead spending a buck on something which has really earned it. I managed to jump that divide today and make my teeny-weeny contribution to whichever rockstar binge they might be hosting. It feels pleasant, but not in the way that charity makes you feel. It's more like repaying a mortgage made on your soul.

St. Patty's

Boston is a good town but by most standards Boston is a dead town. It's got its intellectual airs and old world heritage all right but a little spice wouldn't hurt. The faithful can always argue that's the reason why Boston is Boston, not NYC or Paris. Winters in Massachusetts are not too friendly anyhow, but you'd expect a place which proclaims itself to be the "Hub of the world" to have something more than gusty, chilly winds from the Atlantic in the heart of downtown. Somehow whenever I land up in South Station to get a taste of the 'city life', the place is always desolate except for the odd homeless guy begging for some extra change that I might have. The day I see someone other than him on the streets near South Station, I might just give him some!

March 17th every year is of course a very different day. It's Ireland's biggest do, St. Patrick's Day. Considering the very Irish roots of this ol'town, it is when the green beer starts flowing in the drains of Boston and the Irish shamrock (Read the three leaved pattern that is part of the leprechaun's waistcoat in the above picture) is up for display on every corner. Even though it's not an official holiday, there is a different vibe to the city that day. After office, my pal and me arrived in Boston at about 6:00 in the evening, we ran across troups of drunk guys and girls howling, screeching and hooting at the top of their voices. Evidently they had been on the task since morning. Green dyed hair, green skirts, green eye shadow (Pretty hot) and garish green contact lenses (Pretty nasty) are on display by the hundreds. We took the T down to the Faneuil Hall area where all the action is. There are scores of Irish pubs all around and every one was packed to the rafters with long queues outside by the time we got there. 

We were part of the "Irish for a day" brigade looking for a cheap drinking binge on a day that the Irish spirit serves as a justification for chugging it up. There were places like "The Purple Shamrock" which looked like an awesome place to be in but the huge line of drunk and boisterous Irishmen waiting to get in caused us to chicken out. We settled for a quiet place (No cover charge there too conveniently) called the "Red Sky". Every pub was churning out U2 that night, so it turned out to be a rare pleasure for my hip-hop tortured ears. My brother's team showed up and we moved to another pub across the street "McCormick and Schmick's". 

This was probably the oddest group of St. Patty's revellers. Two Indians straight from India, plus one Indian Bengali born in Canada plus one Indian Punjabi born in Kashmir, brought up in the States, plus a 0% Irish American girl and to cap our multi-ethnic group a girl who was 50% Japanese, 25% Irish and 25% Native American (The other Indian). Phew! Talk about mixing of cultures, there's one radical example for you! And of course, never mind that all of us were all trying to be Irish.

It could've a much more boisterous night but there was precious ol'work to get back to the next day. Just before we left the pub, a band of ruddy Irishmen in kilts and armed with bagpipes and drums marched into our tiny little pub and proceeded to blow our ears out with some catchy Irish tunes. Post this cacophonous farewell, it was time to give up our short lived Irish identities. The taste of Guinness still bitter-good in our tongues, our group parted ways. The locals of Boston were of course were just shifting venues but us villagers were going home before they turn the streetlights off (Just kidding of course, but they might as well in a place like Taunton)! I would kill for days like this. Work because that's where the money comes from, head out to town, pretend to be someone who you are totally not and still be put up with because all everyone wants is a good time. My life is so full of infinite waiting periods between days like these. Hell, my life's mostly like the streets of downtown Boston on a winter day other than St. Patrick's Day.

Hero

A couple of rows behind my cubicle in office sits my colleague Mike. I hardly know him at all, except for the "Hi" that we exchange whenever we come across each other and when he needs a little help on the printer which is right next to my cubicle. I don't really think that he knows my name.

Everyone of course knows Mike. He's the guy forever smiling and cheerfully chatting on his earpiece as he handles customer service complaints for the company. All the prettiest women in the office know him and make it a point to smile and talk to him whenever he passes by. Everyone I know is extra hearty in their greetings to him and I really cannot hold that against them. Because Mike is restricted to and moves around in a wheelchair. He is totally incapable of using his legs or even of standing up.

When the printer on top of the table gives out an error message, Mike cannot see it and has to request me to sort out the problem for him. I do my best to treat this request as naturally as possible but I feel his hurt. To be unable to do what normal people don't even need to think about. Walk, run, look out of the window. And to keep such a astounding level of positivity in his life, to take each day as it comes head-on and with a grin. Does the person on the other end of the telephone line cribbing about a late delivery or some other insignificant issue know the enormity of the challenge faced by the person handling his complaint? On the other hand, I am sure Mike doesn't want his customer to know any of these details. He's a proud man giving his 100%, doing as well if not better than his able-bodied counterparts. 

If he could stand, he would've dwarfed us all. At the end of a rough day, I juxtapose my pressing issues against his. Don't tell me that he has to smile because he has no other option. I stare in awe at the strength of his spirit and in shame at the petty complaints of my life. In no way, does this guy deserve my sympathy. He merely commands my respect!

Why bother?

I watched two movies on consecutive days. The first was the Korean movie "Old Boy" and the next was "Scent of a woman".  Even though I am sufficiently fond of Al Pacino's style of acting, I think "Scent of a woman" sucked. Here was a story that bordered on the unbelievable as regards to the almost super-human charm of an almost blind man, and all the while every viewer could've told where the story was going. The acting was hammed, the lines were cliched and on any other day this mass produced piece of Hollywood pseudo-sentiments would leave me cursing. But not yesterday.

Yes, I know that "Old Boy" won the Jury Grand Prix at Cannes and all that. Without spoiling the suspense of the storyline, let's just say that the climax is very very disturbing. I am a firm proponent of artistic freedom and the need to express stories that tread beyond the norm. However this one shook me to the core or maybe even sickened me. The ultimate topic being broached in the movie is a very natural possibility yet our society has so conditioned us that we are nauseated even at its thought. Why should in these rare cases, even true love fall under the bracket of sin just because convention says so? 

"Old Boy" takes the viewer where he wouldn't dare to venture alone. Maybe therein lies its greatness as a film. It is crisply & beautifully shot, edited down to the final "d" and brutal in its message delivery. There is so much to talk about and fictionalize about in our complicated existence but to go to the places that this movie has gone takes a rare kind of courage and morbid curiosity. Using the imagination to probe the dark corners of the mind may be the big draw for some artists but it's downright scary for me to watch the results. So watching a movie like "Scent of a woman" full of corny, romantic lines and a very very typical climactic 'courtroom' speech, made me feel normal again and I was glad for it. I was back in the conventional world where love and honour meant what we were taught when we were immature; simplified concepts of black and white that were within our limited emotional grasp. Our thoughts would like to take us to a whole lot of nooks and crannies but I think its not always such a great idea to hitch a ride with them.

Meditative Sunday

This weekend there was glorious weather in Massachusetts. After innumerable consecutive weekends of cold, drafty, snowy cooped up inactivity, the sun was out in its full blazing glory. Yet I had to be content giving this great weather a quiet and slightly dejected wave-by as I was still winding down from last weekend's mega-exertions at Vegas.

Sometimes not making the most of any opportunity has its own pleasures. Here was the perfect weekend to go scouting in and around Boston and add another pin to the places that I had visited, and all I did was spend it in a semi-haze helped by the viciously strong cold medication I was taking. My cousin brother (another Vegas afflicted citizen) and I literally sat for hours on neighbouring couches at my aunt's place but hardly spoke a word. Both of us wore dazed, happy LSD smiles. In part it was the Vegas effect and in part it was the undeniable joy of being totally useless.

My smile took shape as I wandered through the places I'd been on this stint in the USA. I had seen the Atlantic from Castle Rock, Plymouth, Bristol, Boston, from 10000 feet above Newport before jumping out of the plane, and many of the beaches of Cape Cod. I had pondered on the Pacific shade of blue from the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco and the beaches & spectacular rocky coastlines of Monterey. I had scythed my way through the teeming crowds in Manhattan, paused for a beautiful moment in Central Park on an autumn afternoon and had relaxed beer in hand with a clear, undisturbed view of the night-time Manhattan skyline from across the river in Jersey City. I had steamed past the ubiquitous symbol of America, Statue of Liberty, that green metal giant. I had taken a plunge into the sea of human enterprise that is Las Vegas, a settlement that literally rose out of the desert and does exceedingly well by any standards. I had stood in quiet contemplation over the rushing mountains of water at the Niagara Falls, and the unconquerable beauty of the Grand Canyon. I had sipped coffee in the company of the intellectual elite of the world at Harvard Square, had lunch at Stanford and stood at the same viewpoint where scientific geniuses of UC, Berkeley had hit their Eureka moment high above in their stunning mountain-top campus. Every little unnamed house that was made remarkable by the colours of fall or fresh snow danced across my mind's eye. 

Every new friend and every new experience on this trip re-engraved itself in my memory during that afternoon which I said nothing and did nothing. I let my mind replay those memories and organize them more efficiently. I really am glad for days like these. Sure, I could have been doing something for the betterment of the world in those few hours but I doubt whether it could have been so satisfying as these few hours of unrepented self indulgence. If there was more to life than this, I couldn't care less for it!

Grand

"You might think that the name 'Grand' is a bit too unimaginative and simplistic", said Lewis Carol, our giant of a guide, "Just wait till you get there." The south rim of the Grand Canyon is a 5 hour bus ride away from the sheen and glitter of Las Vegas. After partying all night for the past two nights, a bus which starts at 6:30 in the morning is not the place where you'd want to be. But I was running short of time.

Moving through the sparse vegetation of the Arizona desert on both sides, with only rock mountains for company, the Native Americans had been making this journey for thousands of years. They had set out for the place where the spirits of their forefathers roamed and they felt the need to confer with them. The road was metalled now and we were ensconced in the comfort of a luxury coach but the journey felt like it would lead to something really special.

The parking lot is a long walk from the edge of the canyon and signs led you to your first glimpse of the stateliness of the Canyon. Sheer rock walls dropping thousands of feet below, their colours varying with every few feet of the change of depth. There were peculiar shapes all around this magical landscape, carved by the twin genies of wind and water. The water of the raging Colorado was so deep down below that it was a worm at the base of the canyon. The wind flew through the channels, at times singing, at times roaring, a wild, wonderful song. I had seen both sides of the world within the space of a few hours. One was the ultra-commercialized world of desires as exemplified by the city of Las Vegas, and this the timeless masterpiece by Nature carved of wind and stone yet embodied with a soul far greater than what was capable of residing in a single human.