yelos folks!

writing from a very very aesthetic place. love it - do not know why did missed on this earlier on. truth be told - I realise I have been very far from being in moment since a while. Now that I am, seems like a wonderful place to begin this year’s articles. As is with other articles too, send me a thoughtful comment and get gifted an ice-cream :)

So, what is today's article about?

Running. Man, I love running! I've loved it since my college days, but it's only since November that I've started running consistently. (sidebar: 3 years back, this exact thing was true about writing. hence wrote Season 1 (2021) - Anuj's Chotu Reflections)

What’s different this time though is, I read this book “What I talk about when I talk about Running” - by Haruki Murakami. Not a big fan of this guy, but this book is a memoir of his running + writing. So since guy was so keen on copying me - I thought might as well run and write an article about it.

TLDR: I was spending 10-12 hours in front of my laptop every day, and during release week, I was consistently first on floor and last on the floor. Only running daily kept me sane through it all.

It's been 75+ days of daily running, and what a ride it's been! November was perhaps my most hectic work month ever. Flipkart CEO, Mr. KK decided to renew the homepage, and boy was that intense—especially since xx% of our ad revenue comes from there (I work in Ads Team). With my Business Director leaving the company and nobody to frontload business, it was quite the uphill battle. And it's not like I haven't tried running before—I have! I once took up a 30-day challenge to run 1km daily. Made it to day 29 consistently, but then got food poisoning and ended up vomiting on day 30. :P

Prerun : Lokesh and Rajesh ke nakhre

Before every run, my legs feel heavy and reluctant to participate in this activity. If my legs could talk to each other, I imagine their conversation would go something like this:

Lokesh = left leg, Rajesh = right leg Lokesh: "What the hell is wrong with this guy?" Rajesh: "Exactly! Makes us work just to return to the same spot? What's the point?" Lokesh: "Hasn't he heard about bikes?" Rajesh : “isko band bajate aaj ruko”

Nahi sudhrenge ye log.

Anyhow, I put on my tennis shoes and start running. I'm actually Purva Riviera's fastest runner (my beloved society! And why am I the fastest? nobody’s claimed otherwise, yet :). But we have only have concrete roads and it isn't good to run over. Hence I shifted to running around the lake just behind our society. It offers better ground, better aesthetics. Running in Bangalore is definitely more fun than in Pune. My Pune Park had mostly older folks on their morning walks and runs, while here there's a much younger crowd plus adorable doggos on their stroll. (sidebar: one of these doggos is our neighbor's dog Luna. Oh my god, she is such a cutie! Absolutely frickin love this lil creature). Okay now for the real reason. You have cuter girls on the lake :P ( a nice single 25-year-old can have this much fun, please. Shove your judgement).

Lunaa the cutie!

Look at her puppy eyes maannnnn

As I negotiate with Lokesh and Rajesh (feels weird to call them this—but I definitely imagine them having different personalities), I pass by my society corner and the security guard uncle, who is now a regular smiler (is that a word? Probably not. Does it matter? Nah!).

During Run Observations :

Moving out of society, I see people heading into the gym, and I wonder if I'm an idiot doing these runs every morning—when clearly I should work on my upper body too. Lokesh and Rajesh definitely agree about me being an idiot. I have a feeling Rajesh is the real influencer here, with Lokesh just following his lead. Damn you both!