Back to Circle One

After almost three and a half months (a month of which I was in Canada) I have started jogging again and it was the hardest jog ever. The pain in my legs with each round was intense and I am pretty much sure this wasn't the case when I first started my 10 rounds with even bulkier body. I wonder what changed.

I am very much tempted to revive my Kar Chronicle series but I know the end result of continuation in the series wouldn't cheer me up. So let me just note today's jog. The weather was perfect neither too cold, nor too hot. The park has changed quite a bit. Lot of herbs, grass has been cut down and almost half of the garden was left barren.

Among the people around there weren't familiar faces except one uncle with the same purple T-Shirt jogging around. The actual jog as noted above was very painful and a perfect indicator that I should stick to my routine.

My reason for stopping my routine was first due to monsoon, then winter and sheer laziness. I was reading somewhere in the paper about motivations to jog. The article notes that people jog either for reducing weight or being fit. It stresses the point that it is important to stick to the reason of staying fit.
For me every jog is really about the adrenaline rush, the excessive sweat and the joy of panting. This is what I strive to achieve.

Of course, not everything starts without any reason. It was my recent Kerala trip that prompted me to jog. There are two things in the world that shows a person's true picture - photos or buying a new dress. Sadly in this case of my discovery of my new body shape it accounts to both.

Indicating the indicator

Upon my recent trip back from Canada where you hardly find anyone honking and absolute silent roads,  I felt this is something we also should be able to implement. Given the density of vehicles on the roads and the vast number of narrow by lanes that we have, this wouldn't be possible as most of the people do not have traffic sense. It left me to think at least why not we avoid sound pollution by removing the indicator sound get to hear the for two wheeler. What purpose does it serve? I used to have argument with Sammu that it IS essential for two wheeler as during day time people wouldn't be able to notice the lights. Shouldn't the same be applied to four wheeler as well? Apart from the honk, indicators are the most annoying sounds.

Basic google search hasn't been helpful as the only results returned were of Bajaj 2 wheeler buzzers. I will be checking more on that. Fellow readers do post in the comments why you think it is necessary to have.

Re-visting the past

Coming back from Canada yesterday, I slept undisturbed the whole day yesterday from morning 11 to evening 6:30 which is what is resulting in this blog. I couldn't sleep beyond 2 in the night and from then on have been doing a catch up of old habits. Opened my ever favorite blog of Jai Arjun and spent almost 3 hours through various posts. It then hit me to write one as I see that there is almost an hour and a half to go before my mom or Sammu wake up.

Over the past month at my stay in Toronto all by myself in the hotel room alone and sometimes during the days, I have these strange thoughts going through my head. I feel random lines pouring out of my mind of the thoughts going through, constructing and deconstructing themselves and begging to be heard. Its like calling a helpline and stuck to listening a voice operated machine doling out automatic responses. Only in this case both the caller and the receiver are the same and every time I hang up the call I do so with some sadness awaiting the next call. All I am trying to say is the urge to blog has gone overboard.

Of so many things that are pending to be blogged about, the one I want to focus are my visits to Chandan's place over the weekends. With not so great companions this time around on my trip, I looked forward to going to Chandan's place over the weekends to spend my time. The place is not actually Chandan's but is shared by two others Joe and Hari, both of whom I easily get along with especially Joe (link). The only reason I refer it to by Chandan's name is that I have worked with him for over two years now and recently he has shifted to Ops team and operating from Toronto office. My purpose of going there were two reasons - one for access to really great internet speeds and most importantly to spend time with them talking about nonsensical things or idle bantering about colleagues, project life etc.

There was a pattern I have observed being there that forced me to revisit my past. Let me just describe the place. It is a one bedroom flat with a accompanying storehouse. There is hall with open kitchen as you enter and bedroom adjoining the second half of the hall. Hall is where Joe sleeps and the other two have their own separate beds in the bedroom. Once I go to their place and settle down finishing saying hi to all, the first thing I do is to remove the laptop and earphones from my backpack and settle down in one of the beds. I plug in my charger and log on to my netflix account to resume my movie watching. (Oh! The joy of netflix-needs whole new blog for it). All the other 3 in the same setting, each to their own Netflix until dinner time when either Chandan/Joe do the cooking. The same continues post-Dinner. This scene reminded me of Matrix movies where people are just plugged in to go to the 'real' world. It felt scary and isolated completely devoid of human interactions. The scarier part being this is pattern is repeating pattern with no end.

Thinking bit more on it, the realization hit me that this was how my bachelor life too had been post Nikmo-era either with Murali/Hari. Coming back from office, logging on to computer and playing the latest film/series that's been downloaded. I was in the same state. I look upon this as the effect of not having other pursuits such as reading books or not pushing hard enough to mingle with crowd to have fun outdoors. That's the difference I see being in Banglore and Hyderabad. At Bangalore, with six people in the room the life was more outward going. Going to movies, dining out at restaurants, playing cricket, these things made me have the best of both - the love of watching movies or reading books (I did a LOT during that time) and at the same time having the much needed social fabric of mingling with people and having fun. That's not to say more the merrier all the time as being Nikmo was equally enjoyable with likes of Nikhil, Raja Vardhan, Sindu , Divz for company.

Coming to back to the stay, I realized at some point these people would definitely need to move on. I did find out that this hasn't been this way initially. During their initial months, they had a carom board and played on it for days together finally getting over it and the current state is what they have come to after that. Maybe they are moving on through different periods of pre-occupations or may be not, but they are a happy lot. I for one realize this part of my life has moved on and I strongly feel, as an outsider now, that it is important to have certain pre-occupation/hobby or whatever it is called be it books or going out to movies, dining out occasionally, get together of all friends is a very essential part of life.

My movie-watching or book reading have reduced considerably and so has my zeal to look for the latest ones to download. I don't have any complaints though. Coming back home from office, I look forward to spending some nice time with my wife and mom discussing about day's activities or plans. It makes me happy to find such nice companionship and one of the sweet joys of marriage. The life of being hooked to end of the cable for endless days is for all purposes over.

Just to finish of this isn't to say what is good / what is bad and I am happy with the maturity of understanding that keeping balance in life with what you love, your passions and the society around is the best way of living and am glad to be with it.