Great challenge of running in Bombay in the monsoons

On the one hand, it is a lot easier to run when the hot Bombay sun is hidden behind clouds, but the monsoons pose a challenge to someone who wants to run on Juhu Beach. The storm water drains basically empty out this season and the beach is utterly filthy. I saw a municipal crew cleaning up the stretch from the Godrej Bungalow up to Hotel Citizen, but the rest of the beach is so disgustingly dirty that it is impossible to run there until October!

In 2011, I had the wonderful second option of the Bhavan's College campus behind my house, but the authorities decided to close it off to outsiders under 60. That leaves me with the Andheri Sports Complex. It isn't exactly the most inspiring place for a run but is reasonably clean. When I cross the finish line at the Datarang Merdeka in a few months, I will remember these early struggles.  

Kuala Lumpur, here I come

Last year, I prepared fairly well for the Kuala Lumpur marathon and felt quite confident of doing well there, but then the event was postponed in the last minute on account of the small haze in the city caused by forest fires in Sumatra.

I registered for the 2014 edition, which will be held on October 12. It gives me 4 months to train. Running a marathon is not healthy, but training for one is. If I can put in a disciplined effort and cross train between now and October, I will be in the best shape of my life by then.

I just feel a lot more focused and confident now than I did even before the Mumbai 2012 marathon. 

Extended summer in Bombay

The monsoon has not hit Bombay yet and we are already moving towards mid-June. This has been a particularly brutal summer in the city. April was a gorgeous and pleasant month, until around the 21st when the heat hit the city hard. I was away for a big chunk of May, but this was the hottest May I experienced in the city since the summer of 2002.

It has to rain really soon, or the paranoid municipal corporation is going to start water supply cuts. I am done with enjoying my summer jazz music. It's time to switch over to Lata Mangeshkar classics on a rainy monsoon night. I long to see the reflection of Bombay's monuments at night on puddles. 

I can't wait to eat samosas and drink masala chai and watch the rain from my balcony window.  We've waited long enough! Come on monsoon rains! Lash us with all your fury.

My thoughts on The World Before Her

When I found out that the Times of India ensured that this documentary made by a Canadian film-maker got no print space of any kind on its papers, I decided to go and watch it. What did the Times Group have to hide anyway?

I am not going to give away too much here, but I think this is a well-made film. It simultaneously takes us behind the scenes of Durga Vahini (the women's wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad) camp and the Miss India contest.  It's a great look at contemporary India and its horrors (and in this film, more of them came from the latter).

I wish the film-maker hadn't tried to bring in politics here, but then why would the Canadian government even bother to fund a film on India, unless it could take a potshot at its political enemies in India, as opposed to the corrupt and inept government that was voted out?

Just 1 small observation. The so-called diction expert had a pathetic cockney accent and it was obvious that her face was the result of one too many botox shots gone wrong.

I would recommend watching this film. It's nice to see these parallel worlds in India that I am so distant and disconnected from. 

India, Turkey, Hindistan and the Russian connection

One February morning when I walked towards Istanbul's Taksim Square, a middle-aged man stopped me near the Armenian church and asked me if I was from Pakistan, when I replied, "Hindistan," the man got excited and warmly shook my hand. 

The word "Hindi" means turkey (the bird) in Turkish. Turks believe that the bird's origin is India and so India is the land of turkeys. So what does any of this have to do with Russia?  Nothing, I would have thought until I read this on the Russia & India Report. 

Alexey Mikheeyev writes, "Last but not least, the Asians indianka (an “Indian woman”) and koreiyanka (a “Korean woman”) also have their abridged counterparts: indeika and koreika: where the former refers to a female turkey..."

So somewhere this connection with India and the bird spread from Turkey to Russia. 

Isn't it wonderful that we're all connected in the strangest of ways? 

I'm back

I know this blog has been dormant for months now, but I have decided to get back into the habit of blogging more about my life and travels and everything else. Stay tuned for some entertaining reads.