It’s a fast-track, health conscious world we live in, where things move rapid fire – in fact most of us (at least those who still can) are running for something. The last time I had participated in the Mumbai Marathon few years ago, the obvious tag line was ‘Run’ ! But few keen runners were quoted saying ‘I’m running for my Son/Daughter/Friends/Greener Society/Good Roads etc etc.’ Few showed bravado & said ‘For it’s challenge’, none dared to be funny & say ‘…from the wife’ ! Senior citizens were allowed another version of running – ‘brisk walking amidst lots of cheering’.
In the Mumbai megacity and other metros, most people seem to be literally ‘running’ all the time to scamper from one metro/local train/bus/auto and reach their destinations in time. The management gurus have a theory for rookies that in their profession ‘they must hit the ground running’ to pace with grueling work demands and won’t be given time to settle down. For those who’re in jobs ‘you’ve to keep running to remain in the same place’ or lose out to brighter guys !
If this ‘running’ business make new-age heads swirl, spare a thought for the upwardly mobile, young working parents, running to keep up with the activities of their school-going children and their preferred extra curriculum chosen from sports, dancing, music, swimming, dramatics and so on, extra classes and/or coaching and home-tasks, done or be supervised by the parents. As & when they’re teen-agers, it’s running around various elite institutes for their higher education ! Not to forget the constant ‘running’ of the house, with all its multi-tasking and managerial skills.
Moving on, we seniors still nurse the romance of ‘running around the trees’ of the quintessential Bollywood films of the 1960s-80s, where the hero wooed the leading lady by crooning a breezy song against the ethereally beautiful ‘Kashmir’ backdrop. Anything beyond that was disapproved by the Censors. In reality, as students in 70s, we’d be found in classrooms or playfields but our more intrepid peers did a fair bit of ‘chasing’ & ‘dating’, much to our awe and respect for them !
Times have dramatically changed and nothing really surprises but recently there was a first in the realm of ‘running’. In the past, grooms used to ride horses to their weddings, but now we’ve had Nupur Shikhare a fitness trainer & superstar Aamir Khan’s son-in-law who chose a unique approach. He jogged 8 kms from Santcruz to Bandra in Mumbai to marry the love of his life, Ira Khan. As celebrity clips & pictures have shown, the impetuous groom wore the jogger’s outfit, comprising of singlet & shorts while performing the marriage ceremony and then danced with gay abandon, but following the ceremony he donned an appropriate outfit to meet the paparazzi.
Even the worst run is better than no run at all. We keep running for Ourselves & for Dear Life !
(The pic below is from my participation in the Mumbai Marathon, 2020)
Working on Living 