Story of the reluctant Jogger

I had just then retired. While I used to go for regular walk, jogging was somewhat an anathema to me. I had participated as a sprinter in school athletics. But after employment walking was the only type of exercise I could indulge. There were physical and mental barriers too. In 1999 while climbing up the Tirupathi hill I had sudden palpitation and fainted. The doctor after relevant tests asked me to take corrective medicines and also go for walk regularly. My lack of stamina was confirmed when I underwent a tread mill test subsequently. I could withstand the test for only 2 minutes. The aftermath of the event was that I started going for walk regularly every day. There is a nice walking track near my house. I used to walk there for 45 minutes every day. I was not comfortable during walk even after a year. I had sudden feelings of faintness during the walk. During one of the walks, I felt so bad that returning to the house took double the time than usual. I felt sore over a life without hobbies. That was the time when I went on a pilgrimage to Sholingur a nearby town with a shrine on a mountaintop. The mountain is situated at a height of 600 feet, and there are steps to reach the top. I found to my chagrin that both young and old in hundreds were climbing up the hill easily. Even disabled persons were climbing by squatting and pushing themselves up. There were also few invalids who were carried on Dolis(chairs) by helpers. My heart went throbbing as I climbed the first step. After climbing hundred steps, I took rest, sitting on a nearby parapet wall as I felt uneasy. My family was waiting for me to start climbing again. I was in no mood . My family finally went climbing up to the temple. My wife who accompanied me during the climb till then also left me sitting and started climbing. I was not alone, as there were plenty of people moving around and also lot of monkeys playing around. I gained normalcy after some time but continued to take rest till all the members of the family returned after visiting the shrine. I learnt valuable lessons during the trip. One has to endure suffering alone and nobody else other than the person could endure the suffering. I took a vow to overcome the deficiency at the earliest by God’s grace and climb a hill as soon as possible. I started walking regularly for 45 minutes every day without fail from then onwards. I bought a weighing machine and started noting down my weight periodically. I also underwent a dieting routine known as “GM routine”. My weight came down marginally by one or two kgs. What was more important was that my stamina was improving. I could now walk without problem, and was feeling confident that I could climb a mountain. Soon an opportunity arose to check my state of health. I visited a Srinivasa temple on a mountain, near the town of Chengalpet. The hill was around 300 feet in height. I comfortably climbed the mountain without any difficulty, and was very happy. In the subsequent months while visiting Pune I climbed up the Sahayadri mountain to see the Karla caves. The mountain was quite steep and had many steps. I was quite comfortable while climbing and there was no adverse effect. While I was practicing walking, I did go for a bit of jogging now and then. But I could run only for a minute or so as I found my heart racing up and body sweating profusely. There were also muscle pull-ups and knee pain. I had read that jogging beyond 50 years of age was not advisable. I was not too optimistic on jogging. Few months later, a dramatic change came when I went on a visit to my son’s home in US. My son is an avid jogger. He had participated in some of the marathon races held in the part of US where he lives. If he had spare time he would spend it on jogging. He lives in the upper New York state, which is a hilly terrain surrounded by forest and hills. It is an ideal location for jogging as the traffic is less and there are plenty of roads around the mountains to run on. Even on holidays I could speak to my son only during lunch or dinner, as most of the time he was out running. I and my wife went for short walks during morning and evening. My son used to insist on my accompanying him during his running; but I was too reluctant to follow his advice. We had planned to stay with him for 4 months and were taken around to nearby places by him in the first month. While I was employed I did not have time to do even normal routines. But in US I did not know how to spend time as there was plenty of leisure time to manage. I had read activities of achievers. They persisted in their plans irrespective of hurdles on the way. But I always carried out activities in fits and jerks based on moods. I came across a suggestion that “carry out activities in small bits, but on a sure footing; Make course correction when ever needed and then continue”. I was impressed and resolved to follow the advice. On most of the days,I had leisure time after 3’o clock in afternoon. One day I started walking from my son’s house to a bridge nearly 2 miles away. The surroundings were very nice with tall trees and meadows on the way. There were very few houses. I had to climb up a bit of gradient and then descend down for a distance of 1/8th of a mile. After that it was a flat plain road, but again the road rose up nearer the bridge. Every day I walked on the route at the same time. It was tiresome initially, but the scenes around created deep interest and enduring impression. It was surely better than getting cooped up in the house. I was covering a distance of 4 miles every day. After a week my walking speed improved and leg muscles got used to the routine. The boredom I felt initially in walking alone vanished and I started enjoying the walks. The only problem was that it was summer and the heat was unbearable. I did not try jogging as I was not sure of my stamina. One day I saw an elderly person joging. He was running in a rhythmic manner, with beautiful steps. I felt ashamed and made a resolve to start running somehow. Next day during the walk, I started jogging. I would have run only for a minute or so but by then my breath became heavy and I was sweating all over. That did not deter me to give up entirely. After every 10 minutes of walk, I ran for a minute. Next day I continued jogging in between walking as I did in the previous day. The exercise continued throughout that week. For the next week I set up a target of running continuously for 5 minutes. It was a herculean affair to achieve the target. I could reach it only by the week end. But I was quite happy. In subsequent weeks I slowly increased the duration of running with lot of protests from the body. After 2 weeks I could run the full distance of 2 miles without much halts. Subsequently I was able to run the total up and down distance of 4 miles comfortably. Because of regular jogging, I lost 5kg in weight, by the time I left for India . The trick was in gradually training both body and mind to the rigorous routine of jogging. Speed of running was unimportant; but steady rhythm was much more important. I was extremely happy in achieving a new mile stone on my 60th year. I continued to run long distances even after returning to India without any adverse effects.

If you are running the venture……

(Excerpts taken from the book “Winning” by Jack Welch ch.13 page 213) The guide lines I have just listed are directed in many ways at the executives sponsoring a new venture. But they have important applications for the venture’s actual leaders-the people running the show. Consider the first guideline, about spending on resources and people. More often than not, you will find you are not getting enough money from the mother ship, nor are you getting the best people. What do you do? Fight like hell. Get yourself in front of senior management and make your case. And work the personnel front on your own. Ferret out good candidates both inside and outside the company, and make your pitch directly to them. Just go get the best people, even if you have to throw a few elbows. Now about hoopla. You need to realize it’s a two-edged sword. You want it in order to get commitment from those above you. But when you get that commitment, it is sure to tick off your peers. In particular established businesses with fat profits absolutely hate it when little upstarts with no profits get a disproportionate amount of company resources and attention. They are certain they need more resources and would spend them more wisely than your risky little venture. Their attitude may annoy you, but the last thing you need is to have anyone in the company rooting for you to fail. Recognize that resentment toward new ventures is natural. Keep your mouth shut if it bothers you. Humility will serve you well with your peers; someday soon, you’ll need their support. Finally, about autonomy. The fact of the matter is, you are always going to want more of it than you get. The best way to get autonomy is to earn it. If you play by the rules, you’ll get your freedom soon enough. The spotlight of the company is on you. Don’t blow it by overreacting if you feel the early constraints put upon you are stifling. They are just part of the process of your “parents” letting go.

The Great Indian highway

Recently I travelled by train to Mangalore from Chennai with a marriage party. We were in a 2nd class sleeper coach, that was connected to other coaches by vestibules.

After I settled down, first part of the drama started. Several passengers entered through the vestibule from nearby coaches searching for their seats. Earlier travel was with a hard cardboard ticket; now a day it is with a computer printout /cell phone message. This results in great confusion as passengers are still not conversant with the methodology. In our coach there was confusion on seat occupancy. There were also passengers with unconfirmed reservations, who silently hunted for seats. Only person who could resolve the problem was the TTE, who was nowhere in sight. The battle of words was won temporarily by the strong while the weak had to wait for TTE’s arrival. Several passengers were also standing in narrow corridors leading to the toilets holding suitcases and beddings of all shapes and sizes. The blockage of the passage went on to such massive levels that people had to push through the wall of luggage to reach toilets. There was also a babble of loud voices in the background. People seemed garrulous and quite proud of their own voices. There were vociferous discussions, and acrimonious debates, mingled with high pitched wailing noises from babies averse to the unfriendly surroundings.

After ten minutes of the train’s departure the benign presence of the TTE could be felt. He looked like a film star as he was thronged by a mob holding proofs of journey and begging for seats. He was nonchalant and went through the job with less ado. At the end of examination some passengers were asked to go to other coaches, but still there were large numbers who were left out and who continued to haunt him.

The initial hubbub having subsided I thought mother peace would prevail with her calming effect for the rest of the trip. At that time I was not aware of my erroneous thinking. Within minutes the peace was shattered with the start of the parade of the vendors. The average Indian passenger would like all comforts of home to be replicated during a train journey also. In earlier times trains used to stop almost at every station so that buying food or beverage was not a problem. With the advent of superfast trains this convenience got curtailed. To overcome the problem a diner car was attached to the train and vestibule system was introduced. But with huge number of people travelling on the train accommodating them in the diner car posed severe problems of space. Some railway man got a brain wave which resulted in a continuous parade of vendors carrying food and beverage eliminating the need for a diner car and also fulfill commuters’ needs.

Peace would have still been ensured if only vendors moved quietly. But to impress passengers with their presence they invariably shouted with loud voices about their products and broke the silence. Most of the materials were carried by hand in big open boxes and not by trolleys. The passage was so narrow that only one person could walk at a time, preventing the use of trolleys. If someone wanted to buy, a cup of coffee, the vendor placed the big can of coffee on the nearest vacant seat to pour out the drink. People sitting around had to be careful as the hot drum suddenly came in contact with their bodies and coffee got sprayed on to their dresses. The occupant of the seat on which the coffee can was kept at times got quite a shock when he returned as the can invariably leaked and left a circular mark of the highly staining liquid on the seat. Most of the people were unaware of the damage done to their seats and their bottoms get drenched without their knowledge. Nobody seemed to bother and everything was carried out as a matter of routine.

As I was observing the proceedings, a person from our group left for the toilet, and a passerby quietly occupied the seat. When I asked him to vacate he said that he would do so when the original occupant returned. A chaotic atmosphere akin to a bazaar prevailed all over the compartment. Perhaps I was the only person who felt out of place, everybody else looked as though they thoroughly enjoyed the scenario. Casual atmosphere prevailed allover to such an extent that there was no question of privacy. There was no distinction between people known and unknown. There was a thorough mix up. Heated discussions on various topics were going on among some of our party members. Some of the strangers were keenly observing the proceedings and would have merrily butted in if given the opportunity.

Slowly the night was creeping in but there was no abatement of activities. There was a program of “Antharakshi” (singing popular film songs) going on nearby. People were piled up in that small place; more of observers than participants. Loud music was pouring out and one was forced to listen without choice. Wherever the train stopped, there was an inflow of passengers searching for vacant seats. Since the Antharakshi was going on and people had gone to observe, most of the seats were vacant. Every new passenger tried to occupy a vacant seat and some of us had to keep a constant vigil to keep the seats intact.

After some time, vendors started parading with the night dinner and the passage got crowded for a long time. By the time we went to sleep it was nearly half past ten. I occupied the upper most berth which was a vantage point to observe the passage. The lights were switched off but after midnight I suddenly woke up to find a stranger sitting with number of luggage on the passage. Only after much persuasion he could be forced to move out.

In the morning, I woke up from a good slumber after hearing the loud voice of a tea vendor. There was crowd at latrines and wash basins and it took a long time of waiting to finish activities. Finally we reached our destination of Mangalore without any further mishap.

I realized in the end that the passage in the train was similar to “The Great Indian highway” described by Rudyard Kipling in his famous novel “Kim”; which was always crowded with its own characters and its own activities.