And thus spoke the heart...

Is it pure evil
Or is it simply being a devil

Trying to ruin my peace,
Giving me sleepless nights
Over what really is nothing.

Or is it simply confused,
No longer able to think straight.

Or is it, as some say it is,
In need of a good getaway...

And yet how do i getaway, and where to,
When there really is no escape

For it all is indeed, in the mind...

Questions that never stop coming
Questions that have no answer after all;

Questions that plague me
At the slightest provocation….

How do I know what my duty really is
And how do I know when it calls

How do I make the choices
I am not wise enough to make...

And is there really a choice
If this is right, and that is easy
But the right bears only pain
And the easy isn’t easy at all…

And what really is right anyway
If no matter how I choose,
Some one seems wronged always...

Why must this always be a zero sum game
Is this how you meant it to be?

Do your karma and leave the rest to me, You say

But then what is my karma,
For even if I choose not to choose
It is a still a choice made

The consequences of which I cannot predict
and yet must bear with nothing but doubt

Of what would it have been like, had I chosen differently…

A devil that riles me up
At the slightest provocation

Only to wear me down
Into defeated numbness again…

…The mind is restless, Krishna.

Of feet, shoes and medals

It was very early on in my life that i figured running was not my thing. I just couldn't do it, it was just too much effort. and so I retreated back to the audience and from there very quickly to the stage; compering was my thing. I loved doing it, and it was no effort at all. I must have been pretty good at it too says the track record, but that really is besides the point.

The point is I never ran. I never could. It was many years later, when I stumbled upon the reason. I have a flat foot. Completely flat. Not sure why it never prevented me from breaking a leg, umm metaphorically, on the dance floor, but it sure as hell was why I could never run. But then by the time I made this discovery I had graduated into the advanced stages of couch potato syndrome and couldn't care less.

Then came the typically romanticized ridiculous working hours of the Indian IT industry and any hope of me ever getting any physical activity other than walking between the fridge and my desk was lost forever. But I never got fat so there was hardly a reason convincing enough to make me walk, literally, the extra mile.

More craziness followed with MBA. No sleep, and endless internet.

And then something changed. I ran. And it felt like it had never felt before. Thanks to the one who introduced me to the possibility of customized shoes, the blessed soul whom I have now conveniently forgotten, I ran in my new shoes, custom made for my one flat-one normal feet. That was a year ago.

Today, 5 Dec 2010, at least a 100 hours of running time, many early mornings, many evening-dinner sacrifices and many sprained muscles later, I finally hit a milestone in my life I had almost given up on....

I got myself a medal for a sports-activity.

It was a hell lot of effort, I could have easily spent those hours surfing the net and walking in between to eat junk from the fridge, I probably would have had more fun going out with friends all those evenings, but running the last 500 m to the finish line after an exhausting 21.05 KM in scorching sun...it made all of that effort and all those sacrifices worth it.

No.23: Get a Medal for a sports activity: DONE :)