I am writing this blog to share my experiences on a pleasant Saturday morning of November 7 2009 in Hyderabad. The morning in which I have completed the task of running around the Hussain Sagar Lake. This was a task which I had never thought before, not even dreamt before. Even as a kid, I always dreamt of hitting a century out of 17 balls in the game of cricket. Let me tell you 17 X 6 is 102, i.e. I wanted to be a star in cricket who hits only sixes and avoids running between the wickets as much as possible.
The day started early at 6:00 AM when by mobile alarmed me. After I woke up, I had the daunting task of waking up Lakshminath and Maddy. To wake a person we need to do one among the following a. push him, b. kick him, c. scream in his ears, d. persuade him, e. plead him. To wake Lakshminath, I did them all. He was in two minds whether or not to start running that day and that’s what made the task daunting. Waking up Maddy was easy; a gentle push has completed the task for me. I called up Ram who was about to join from Madhapur, to check if he would be on time. Even though I know that he was accompanied by very famous Vijay, who has a great record of coming late especially if we are planning to start anything early in the morning.
I took Lakshminath, Maddy on my bike and started towards Eat Street in necklace road, the point where we wanted to start our so called 10K run. We didn’t know the circumference of Hussain sagar and having a bike with broken odometer we were not in a position to calculate the distance also. I am not the only one to blame on this; even Ram’s SO CALLED BIKE doesn’t have a working odometer. I have parked my bike at a 100 m distance from eat street so as to use the time which the Ram and Vijay would waste by coming late.
Maddy was wearing a yellow tee and a small short. The short was so small that it was better considered a boxer. Lakshminath wore a black tee and a track pant which was folded on the bottom. You rarely get a chance to watch such a sight of folding the track pants even. I was wearing a casual tee and a track pants. I wasn’t looking like a morning jogger, I was looking more like a guy travelling by bus in the night, who got out of the bus to piss and comes back to see that the bus has moved to the next destination without waiting for him.
Maddy started to jog, Lakshminath acted to jog at around 7:15 in the morning. Even at this point of time there was no trace of Vijay and Ram. So we thought of starting our trip without wasting time in waiting for late comers. It was only around 7:25 Am both Ram and Vijay arrived. Ram was wearing a navy blue tee and a track and was looking like tennis star. Vijay was wearing a red tee and tracks and a round cap covering his ears. He was looking like Rocky Balboa who partied hardly last night and had difficulty in opening his eyes completely the next morning.
Around 7:30 AM was the official start time for all of us excluding Maddy. Maddy had already started running. He already had a goal in his mind, to run for 30 min without break. These PhD students have goals for everything. I think they would have goals in brushing teeth also. They would not just have a goal to brush the teeth in 3 Min but they also break these goals even further, like brushing the incisors on the upper jaw for 30 sec, the lower incisors for 30 sec, canines on the left for 30, canines on the right for 30, molars on the left for 30 and the molars on the right for the last 30. This is how they have goals. They have big goals, small goals, mini goals, micro goals, they have them all. Ram and I formed a team and started jogging, Vijay was jogging before us. Lakshminath was behind us and soon was lost as he was not able to cope with our speed and determination. As myself and Ram were keeping with our constant pace and we could go past Vijay. It was only after 45 min from our start point we both stopped to take some rest near the entrance of Lumbini Park. Even this break was very short, around 1 min just to stretch our muscles and started our marathon again. We jogged around for another 40 min to complete the task.
While on road we could see few interesting things. We could see young couples sitting on the benches of the parks. I had least expected guys and gals start their special classes so early in the morning. We could also see a group of tall, athletic guys running swiftly on the road. It was as if they are trying to inhale every bit of fresh air available on the banks of stinking Hussain Sagar. Lastly we saw retired uncle’s morning meet to discuss politics, a dead snake and young kid’s skating competition. As many people have said “To see a place completely we need to get off the car and start walking.” I have similar experiences to cherish. I loved the weather and our strategy to finish the task.
Hope you liked my first blog ever. Thanks for your time.
