A Celebration

The other weekend, was a special one to Bangalore and to some of us, who sacrificed the luxury of a Sunday and instead, run for a cause. The event was the Lipton India Marathon – celebration run; a modest distance of 7 seven kilometers. Seven may appear too small a number and many experts might round it off to zero. But hey, convert that to feet and multiply it by a load factor derived from the unforgiving Bangalore heat, and then divide that by your fitness index - you’ll know what I’m saying.

Well, yes I managed to complete the distance (else, I wouldn’t have blogged about it). Fifty minutes, heavy breathing, puffing and panting, sore everything, a barely visible finish line and then, I was proud. So was a surprised SA, so was SC, so were everyone.

I recollect the Servo ad where Kumble preaches – “You must break all barriers, you must push every limit”. I guess we all did just that. Sweat was sweet and tiredness enriching. The fruits of hard work were an enormous sense of accomplishment and fervor.

Now, how do I deal with the rest of my life?

Me in Singapore

Okay, it was a long time since I rambled here – had just another attack of lethargy. I cured it partially by traveling to Singapore. I was there to attend the Asia MVP Regional Summit 2005. A big thank you to MS for organizing the whole thing and for the sponsorships.

When you travel abroad for the first time, to a foreign city, you invariably end up comparing it with our very own Bangalore. I was no exception. I was tempted to put all those down into a neat, tabular report, but for the benefit of the low bandwidth subscribers of my arbitrary musings, I am refraining from that.

Here are few reflections from Singapore anyways: Singapore is a ‘fine’ city to say the least. You are fined for anything and everything, and in multiples of 500 Singapore dollars. ‘Trespassers will be shot dead’, said one of the boards. Otherwise, it’s a great city. Highly disciplined crowd, technology is all over, great zoo, fantastic bird park to mention a few. And yes – a mind-blowing Airport.

I did enjoy all the time I spent there, especially those walks at Marina Square, beside the bay, late in the night.

I’ll collect some more thoughts a little later.