Thirty minutes

I have lousy stamina. I mean, really really lousy. If I so much as cut vegetables I get out of breath. One sunny Sunday, I was out doing the community a whole lot of good by cutting down dead trees and cleaning up the area. They had grouped us in twos and threes to make the activity simpler. My partner was an 83-year old given more to babbling than to working and I realised this was going to be a rather long Sunday.

I picked up my axe and with all the force I could muster, hit the tree hard. The axe barely made a scratch. I hit again and again and again. After about 10 minutes of hacking, I finally saw a tiny scar on the tree. I realised my partner was probably having a worse time and decided to help him first. I had just turned around to look for him when a sapling came crashing down near my foot.

"Sorry", he grinned sheepishly. "Rather poor calculation of where it would fall. Its quite easy though, isn't it?"

I gulped.

This "old" man was hacking away like the villian in Texas Chainsaw Massacre while the "young" me was already huffing and puffing away like a steam engine. I decided then that that was that. I was going to do something about myself real quick.

I enrolled in the friendly neighbourhood gym and started running. I would tire out in one minute flat. It took me one full year to manage 20 minutes.

Now I can do thirty. I can also hack away a sapling without breaking into a sweat.

And this year I shall run a marathon.

Music?

The world is beginning to lose its creativity, I mused, thumbing viciously at the remote in my search for the perfect channel. I was in the mood for some good songs but the world's definition of 'good' had drastically changed from my own.

I sighed and reflected back to the time when Metallica were revered like an alternative religion, when people wanted to see Alice in Chains instead of out of it, when Nine Inch Nails had nothing to do with your local hardware store and when 50-Cent were much more expensive than a hundred dollars.

I was tired of the junk they belted out today - Lady Gaga, Pussycat dolls, Greenday...

I think I'm getting too old for music.

The Hunt

So I had these useless pair of sunglasses that I had left at home thinking I'd take them to my trusted optometrist and have them re-glassed (pun unintended). Unfortunately I couldn't for the life of me remember in which 'safe' place I had last secreted them.

So this time, when I got home, I tore my room apart (literally) - reorganised the wardrobe, looked in all the suitcases, all drawers, underneath my study table, under the bed and under the mattress for good measure. Alas, I didn't find them anywhere. I decided to start looking in the other rooms as well.

At the end of a gruelling four hours, my house was in quite a mess. I even found my Mont Blanc pen that I had kept 'safely' seven years ago. But no sunglasses. Tired, I reluctantly gave in to the conclusion that it was nowhere in this house, but my other one instead. After another hour of putting things back in their rightful places, I espied a bright yellow plastic bag sitting cozily on the mantelpiece. I quickly tore it open and lo and behold, my sunglasses popped out!!

Of muddy shoes and sweaty shirts

What moron would bother waking up at 6 in the morning, on a holiday that too, just to go outside and run?

Yeah. Me.

But I really like that. Not the waking up part, but all that other stuff I do when I have managed to pry my eyes open and shake my brain awake. I am really addicted to running outdoors and when you have a beautiful stadium dedicated to that purpose and a great pair of Nikes to go with it, you sort of manage to overcome the dreadful ordeal of waking up early.

So now, I manage to do a 5km run in 30 minutes which is quite an improvement.

The Foreigner

A bunch of us had gone off on a holiday to Mysore and surrounding areas to give our English boss a taste of India. Everything was hunky dory till we reached ticket counters of various places. We used to be sized up and the attendants used to ask for 2 foreigner ticket prices. Who was the second foreigner? Apparently it was me. Remember my shady shades?

Well, at least they didn't ask me for the alien price!

The phone

The phone rang at precisely 3.12 am. I opened a bleary eye and glared at it before moving to see which counfounded idiot had decided to wake me up. It was the CCT. I mentally sighed and hoped it wasn't a big outage.
It wasn't. Our pal was calling me up to ask me if they took care of development environments. We don't. Idiot. I all but threw my phone down and snuggled back into bed.

It rang again at 3.45am.

This time, it was a big outage.

Oh well.

Love

So I feel fast and fall hard. You can't blame me for being the intuitive/sensing type. At least now I don't have expectations anymore. That should count as progress, shouldn't it?

Questions, questions

Have you ever been influenced by someone you didn't even know? Ever been mesmerised in the short acquaintance of a day? Ever seen someone through eyes not clouded by filters of country, race and culture? Ever observed the real person behind the facade he presents to the world? Ever been open and honest about life and joked away the miseries? Shared your thoughts without realising or without meaning to? Broken rules and had fun? Just plain listened? Held hands and felt emotions dancing through you? Laughed at yourself? Empathised with those less fortunate? Been a baby for a change instead of a responsible adult?

Yes, my weekend was rather action packed.