World 10K Bangalore

All the hype and hoopla that surrounded the street marathon named, "TCS World 10-K, Bangalore" seems to have come and gone already by the time I type this out. I'll put my thoughts on virtual paper before they vanish into the oblivious recesses of my memory.

Firstly, the name itself is a piece of work. It somehow reminds me of the saying, "World famous in Bangalore."

The registration procedure involved filling a form on-line that would have passport applications pale in comparison to its length. After wrestling with several pages, one has to deal with the agony of server malfunctions and Captcha stubbornness until your lucky stars finally see you through.

Prior to the run, we were to pick up our running numbers and goody bags from the National Games Village in Koramangala. The organisers had strategically located in the middle of an exhibition that sold expensive merchandise tweaked a little to be passed off as sporty. They deliberately placed the counters quite deep inside this customer-trapping maze with its twists, turns and pretty sales girls.

The powers had hired a bunch of Bengaluru youngsters to deal with the registration. It seemed to me that they were instructed to reply in English no matter what. After repeated attempts at trying to enquire in Kannada, I settled for broken English replies.

The face to face registration process, contrary to its on-line prelude, was extremely well organised. We got out to receive our "goody bags" less than 10 minutes after our entering the auditorium.

The term "goody bag" is placed in quotes for a reason. I'd expected at least a use and throw T-shirt. Instead I was met with the following items. I've tried to put them in the ascending order of their awesomeness.

1. Volini pain relief cream sachets (Very logical)

2. Quaker Oats Porridge mix (This truly was No 2)

3. Revitalate Protein ( "PDCAAS Score of 1.0" it says)

3. Tetley Tea Satchet (Tied for 3rd position)

5. Sugar Free Gold (Its all downhill from here folks!)

6. Hippo Round Round Cheese Munchies (To maintain the Calorie Balance)

7. Itchmosol Anti Itch Cream ( An itch in time saves nine seconds)

8. GoodKnight Mosquito Repellant ( With moisturising protein pearls)

9. Gatsby Water Gloss hair gel (Heading the list of male targeted cosmetics)

10. EverYuth Menz Oxy Active Face Wash

11. EverYuth Menz Face Scrub (Extra Skin Care for Men) *Flinches*

12. Polycrol Xpress Relief Antacid

13. Revital Senior (Whoa!)

14. Revital Women (As if No 13 wasn't bad enough)

15. A bag full of Piramal Healthcare medicines

16. VLCC Fairness Facewash for Men (Racists! The worst product by a mile, 10km rather)

They probably expected a predominantly male population with the average age of 65 to participate. Moreover, after they have the fairer sex eating off their hands, these cosmetic honchos are after our virility. I rest my case.

Anyway, the run happened on the morning of last Sunday. The relevant enthusiastic junta skipped their Sunday morning slumber to turn up at the Kanteerava stadium in hordes. I thought that the crowd was managed pretty decently.

But that illusion only lasted until it was time to start. When that hour was nigh, the seemingly civilised, docile folks of Bangalore unleashed the beasts within. All manners of acrobatics were employed in scaling the chain link fences that separated them from the start line and before you knew it, the whole stadium's inhabitants flooded the running track. Open defiance of baffled security guards ensued. There was also the friendly pat administered with police lathis on unsuspecting, well endowed bottoms whose owners had overestimated their ability to scale chain link fences in the spur of that exciting moment.

The aforementioned flood burst out of the gates of the Kanteerava stadium, like a river in spate, after the start whistle was blown. Unfortunately, the track seemed to narrow into a bottleneck during the first hundred metres or so and most of us were left standing behind the inching horde, the clock ticking mercilessly away.

This traffic jam of human bodies continued to affect spirited runners. There was no clear running path for two whole kilometres owing to walkers, standers and other undesirables. It is a frustrating sight where people who register to run 10 whole kilometres start walking after a mere 100 metres or so, just outside the stadium.

Two kilometres saw the horde diffuse away and the roads open up for people to run at their desired pace. Frequent water points with tiny bottles were present at regular intervals. However, they had dustbins right beside the serving table. It was beyond the organisers' fertile imagination to think that some people might want to continue running with bottles in their hands. Hence, there were no dustbins to be seen till the next water point was at hand. The most irritating sight, however, was that of some people who defiantly chucked their finished water bottles far away, giving themselves the arrogant air of superior beings wholly indifferent to the lesser folks who have to clean up later.

On the brighter side, there were a couple of percussion crews drumming up support for the runners passing by. There were some people on the streets who selflessly cheered the runners on. Having thought that the country sorely lacked the ability to encourage anything to do with the appreciation of true sport, I was not as disappointed as I thought I'd be.

The running itself progresses through various degrees of panting. It starts of with normal nasal breathing and progresses to panting with increasing frequency until it hits a saturation rate. This state of equilibrium took about 4 km to reach and stayed with me for the rest of the race. After about 7 km, the body falls into such a wonderful rhythm that it seems to be able to run in that pace forever while your mind screams out, "Bring it on!"

Somewhere around the 7 km mark, while passing alongside the Chinnaswamy stadium, I happened to run past this yellow shirted guy with shades who quite resembled Rahul Bose. Any doubts that the instinct threw up as to his true identity was mercilessly crushed by the rationale which reasoned that Rahul Bose was much fitter than I was and he'd never give me the opportunity to outrun him. I'd half-a-mind to scream out "Rahul Bose lookalike" at the man in question, but nothing of that sort happened.

Running through the Cubbon Park and Vidhana Soudha on this cloudy morning whose weather was all but perfect for the activity, one couldn't help but think how beautiful Bangalore really is without its bustling traffic. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn't seen it in the proper light. This image, however, was continuously dented by each of the plastic bottles that some uncouth being threw away to litter the beautiful lawns of Cubbon Park. So much for it having been The World Environment Day.

Finally, it was 1 km to the finish. I had vaguely remembered that the finish line was inside the Kantaeerava Stadium's running track. I pushed on in the final kilometre and was surprised to see quite a few people sprinting past me even before the stadium's entrance was in sight. The road then turned into the stadium. Surprise! Staring at me, hidden from view by the turn, was the finish line. I was only around 10 m away and was aghast as I'd stored some energy for the final sprint. I finished the race in 51 mins and 44 seconds, feeling a little foolish that I didn't sprint the last part. The people in charge could've done well to give us boards that announced, "200m left" and, "100m left" etc. instead of this sudden termination.

The aftermath saw me navigate through a small line and pick up a few refreshments along with a neat little medal that was given to everyone that finished. I then roamed around, seeking Chinmaya who'd come along with me on that glorious morning. On reuniting, we proceeded to rest and kill time for a while, criticising the lack of drinking water after the finish line. When I decided that it was time to go, I asked him if he'd collected his medal. On his claiming absolute ignorance in the matter, I showed him my medal. It turns out that the aforementioned small line had swelled to a huge size by now. After finishing the race in about an hour, I ended up waiting for another so that he could collect his black painted trinket. The passage of this hour was made easier by finding some old friends leading me to bask in the petty glory of knowing a significant number of people in this random sample of Bangalore's fitness frenzied.

On returning home, I was met with a family that had had glued its eyes to the television diligently in hopes of sighting the spirited youngster of their household. Instead, they were given a huge dose of this film actor called Rahul and his foreign reporter friend. I casually asked if this Rahul happened to wear a yellow shirt to which my mother replied in the affirmative. The memory of having seen a freaky haired foreigner for whom Rahul Bose's lookalike had seemed to be waiting for, put to rest a lot of unanswered questions.

I'd initially thought that I'd be able to pull the feat off in forty five minutes. I'd planned to give the event one week's training until I managed to sleep through every morning in the hopes of starting the next, until the big day dawned. Next time, I'll look to train and keep my three quarters of an hour hopes up while keeping goody bag content hopes down.