Sunday, July 30, 2006

Heat and Dust

Bharath Desh in summer. Masala Dosa and mangoes for breakfast. The water tastes so different!! I agonize over routes here, more than elsewhere. So many considerations – emotion and nostalgia battle safety and traffic. Potholes, broken pavement and stray dogs require concentration and focus. As do places I grew up in, or lived at, 15 years ago.

I start at Lalbagh, morning walkers abound. A crowded stand up idly restaurant. I run thru Cubbon Park and onto MG Road, newspaper delivery services littering the roads. I am able to run down Brigade Road, in the middle of this normally impassable street.

I swing past Lilian Zavier’s home. Our old garage now a block of flats titled L’Sam. Caesar’s kennel is now a storage area, the proud owner clearly having moved on. It is warm, now, and I feel dust caking my face, as I run past the Army Barracks on Airport Road. My thoughts on old friends and good times, in Indiranagar, mirchi bajjis and too many beers, card games and easy banter. The new flyover looms, and I navigate it’s folds, and see the first buildings of Kormangala, in the distance. But, first, the Call Centers. A large Dell facility. Other companies I have known.

I am out of water, dry and gasping as I end my run at a bus stop. Stretching, I reflect on my changed perception of distance, time and space. I love this land, but worry I can never be local again. Though I try to prove repeatedly I am, at some level, there is this nagging doubt.

(note – This run was on April 30, 2006. I neglected to post this)

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