The Morning Walks`

I like my morning walks..and I have been doing it religiously for several years. I had to take to it because my playing cricket years were over. I played till my forties.. and even now get to play a match or two every year..which leaves me aching all over the next day..Once a cricketer , always a cricketer, they rightly say. But, of late, I often wish I had taken my father's advice seriously..which was to take to tennis rather than cricket. But that was unthinkable then. I was already deeply committed to that sport. But the reason why I regret not taking dad's suggestion is that , tennis doesn't require a team. All you need to do is to land up with your racquet in the club and find someone to have a hit with you. But it's not so with the case of cricket. You gotto find an entire team. Which is difficult for a man well in his forties.

So the walks have replaced cricket. And I am fortunate to have a couple of close friends who live in the same block as I. It's become a habit for us to generally wake up each other around 5'o with 'missed calls'. And then they come to my house and then we start off on our one hour walk. So addicted are we to the walks that we can't imagine how others don't take the trouble of coming out in that early hours and enjoy the fresh air. There's simply something magical about the hour. We leave our houses even as its dark, and by the time, we make a u-turn , it's dawning. And the birds are chirping, the insects humming. I am lucky to be inMysore, a small town in South India..which has a small hillock in the eastern parts..so it's a beautiful sight to witness the sun rising from behind the Chamundi Hill. I have never tired of the scene. It puts me in a good mood for the rest of the day. The part of the town in which I reside was actually the outskirts of the town. So in the initial years, i.e. in the 90's the walks were country walks really. There was a mud road which lead to the fields where jowar,ragi,cocunut trees were grown. Only one bus used to pass us. And since it was the bus carrying villagers from a nearby village to the market with their vegetable produce for sale, we hated it. For the bus would leave a trail of beedi smoke besides its own diesel fume. But things have changed drastically now. The mud road is now a ring road. And our walks are interrupted to give way to those huge, monstrous looking trucks which ply the highways during the night. So often we deviate to the parallel roads to keep ourselves from breathing the diesel fumes instead of fresh oxygen. But still there are lots of pleasures left. For instance, there's one tree which bears a wild variety of flower , whose fragrance, especially during a particular part of the year, pervades a goodly half a kilometre!

My friends do opt to stay at home once in a while. Even then ,I enjoy my walks. Those days I have my ipod for company. The music provides me the right rhythm. Often I concentrate on the lyrics, the music and the walk is pleasure filled. Going out on walks on your own is quite an experience indeed. You can start meditating on your future plans, or for the day ahead. You can set your own pace. And no one to disturb your thoughts.

And when there is a holiday, we decide to go around the Kukkaralli lake which is at a striking distance. The University of Mysore, with the assistance of the state government, has helped preserve, nay , beautify the lake which had inspired such legendary writers as R.K.Narayan and the famous Kannada poet, Kuvempu. If one goes around the bund we will have taken a walk of nearly four kilometres. There are a couple of islands where there are birds like spoonbills, pelicans,cormorants, darter birds. etc.making early morning noises , and the rising sun reddens the water. Altogether , it is a beautiful place indeed.

There is another special place where we go to a couple of times in a year. And that's the 1000 steps up to Chamundi Hill itself. Once upon a time we could climb it in ten minutes flat and come down in five. But not so now. We do it leisurely. As we go higher, our lungs pant for air, and the heart goes pounding away..We have to take breaks regularly. We stop to take in the view of the city down below. The buses, and the cars on the Nanjangud road look like insects, and there, is it really the water tank near our home? So goes the conversation. Sometimes our kids joins us. Then it is a different experience totally. The tender coconut tastes really good at the end of the climb.