It Begins

I have had this desire to write a book and no idea how to begin. Have been reading a lot though. All sorts of stuff. My fear is that I will not have a clue on how to build a plot. If I had a plot I may be able to write it up well. I think!

A recent read is Alchemy of Desire by Tarun Tejpal. The plot or story line in the book has eluded me so far. The lyrical descriptions however are outstanding. Tarun has managed to paint even mundane things and moments and feelings brilliantly. I have not found it to be a page-turner but I have read and re-read many paragraphs for the sheer beauty of description.

Then this South-African girl came to our office to do a project with us. Sure enough she started a blog http://threemonthsindelhi.blogspot.com simple narrative extremely well written.

Both the above have challenged me to get aboard the blog-ship. Hopefully if I can make it a habit, some-day I will hit upon a plot and then the habit will allow me to write a book too. Hopefully some of you would post comments and give your views on my wrting-style, subjects chosen..whatever. Anyway I intend to have fun doing it.

A chance to run

Delhi now has a half-marathon of its own. Thats where I live too. A half-marathon is 21 Km long. The organisers had created a separate category for floating logs, so in 2005 I walked the 7 Km route and passed out afterwards. For a week I kept discovering new muscles and bones in my body as they would ache and hurt in a choreographed sequence. Even my jaw ached. The route was hot and miserable and there were twenty thousand people!

It opened my eyes to the joys of running though. All kinds of people came out on that Sunday morning at 5.00 AM (imagine Delhi doing that!), stood in the Holding Area (ridiculous name) for three hours and then walked the 7 Km.

But to me the real joy was to see Senior citizens turn up for the walk. Believe me, there were over four thousand people ranging from fairly fit looking Dimple Kapadia and Jaya Bachchan to the really elderly. They all walked slowly but with life. It was fantastic to see a large group all dressed in canary yellow T-shirts come out of the starting gate swinging plastic carry bags with water bottles and biscuits. All collected in front of the VIP box to gawk at the few film and sports personalities sitting there. They laughed and giggled amongst themselves like chirping little sparrows and then drifted away slowly to complete the run.

An event like this is unlike anything I had seen. There is hardly any tactile infrastructure. Its just people all over. Thousands and thousands of people give it the form. They collect outside of a stadium, run on public roads and consume litres of water from temporary shacks. Once the run is completed everyone disperses and within minutes there is nothing there at all. Its like a mountainous cloud hovering overhead which gets blown away by a gust of wind and suddenly there is nothing to see.

October is here again and so is the Delhi half-marathon. The aniticipation is building up like the late summer months when monsoon is nigh. I am told some twenty-five thousand have already registered. The high decibel promotion campaign is at its peak. They keep telling you that this guy will run, that fellow will run, even Ring-road, Chandni Chowk, Metro will run. The thousands who come to JLN stadium will make the entire city buzz on the early sunday morning for three hours then everyone will go home and count the aching muscles for a week.