The dangers..

..of giving your ten year old cousin a set of neon nail polish for Christmas.

Finger nails too.

Marathon

Several months ago, JB told me he'd be running the Mumbai Marathon. You'll come and cheer, won't you? he asked me. Sure, I said, imagining myself at the finish line shouting Go JB! as he took that final stride. I could clap and jump a bit too. The sweatiness of the inevitable post-race hug was the worst I'd have to deal with. I thought.

JB's idea of cheering was slightly different. So I'll need 500 ml of Gatorade every hour, he said, and I can't carry more than one bottle at a time. I think I'll take about 5 hours to finish the race, so you need to meet me at 4 different points during the race give me the stuff.

Um, don't they close the roads to traffic? Yeah, he said, so you'll have to find some roundabout way to get there.

So on Sunday morning JB and I left Jan's flat at 5am. JB was pumped. I on the other hand was weighed down by my backpack which had several liters of Gatorade and a couple of kilos of bananas. We got a rick easily to Ghatkopar and from there we got onto a fast train to Churchgate. I snoozed on JB's shoulder while he studied the marathon route.

The plan was to meet M at CST where the race started and then make our way to Haji Ali which was the first Gatorade point. I wasn't really sure how we were going to move around Mumbai, as the race covered quite a bit of ground but M said she had that covered.

She didn't.

I'm not going to go into details, but the highlights include wrong train, wrong stop and a railway fine which nearly escalated into an arrest when we accused plainclothes policemen of being cons trying to make a quick buck.

End result: it was three hours into the race before we got anywhere near the marathon route. JB had refused to carry his cell phone so there was no way of finding out where he was. I guessed that he'd be three fifths of the way along, but since I was really nervous about missing him I decided to add another 8 km to that and wait at the 32 km mark. (You idiot, JB said when I explained my logic to him later. You should have factored in the lack of Gatorade and subtracted 8 km.)

But anyway, there we were at the 32 km mark, sporadically clicking photos, eating an occasional banana and watching all kinds of people run by. Tall, short, mostly skinny. Trotting, walking, even hobbling. No sign of JB.

After about half an hour of waiting, I began to think that JB must have passed that point ages ago. So I began to distribute the Gatorade and bananas. One wheezing old gentleman made me jog alongside as he sipped from the bottle. But mostly people stopped, took a gulp, grabbed a banana and moved on. As more and more stragglers passed us, I became increasingly sure that fit, lithe JB had long since passed that point.

And so I told M that we should head back to the finish line because JB was probably waiting for us there. M, who had a less optimistic view of JB's progress, suggested we wait a while longer. I reluctantly agreed.

It was a hot day, we'd drunk a lot of water and M was feeling a bit uncomfortable. She told me she'd go find a place to pee and told me we'd leave right after she got back. So there I was, sitting on the kerb, when I heard a voice right behind me offering me a cup of tea.

It turned out that I was sitting right in front of a construction site, just inside of which a chai wallah had jerry-rigged a stall. He told me he'd been watching me sitting in the hot sun, offering marathoners drinks and bananas and thought that I might want a cup of tea as refreshment. Now obviously, the last thing you'd want on a muggy Mumbai morning is a cup of hot tea. But the man was so considerate, that I couldn't but accept. And one for your friend as well, he said, pouring out a second cup.

M returned five minutes later and our chai wallah proffered a cup of tea. I don't - she began, while I hissed, don't be rude, just drink it! So M, sweating slightly from her recent exertion, reluctantly began to sip the hot cup of tea. Meanwhile, I packed up my stuff and waited for her to finish so that we could say our thank yous and goodbyes.

By the craziest coincidence, JB turned up just as M took her last sip of tea. If we'd left a minute earlier, we'd have completely missed him. Limping, sweat-streaked and at least three shades darker, he was not a happy man. The energy drinks had given out after the first 10 km and there'd been limited supplies of water. And orange peels, he said bitterly, not a single orange, just orange peels all along the route.

There were explanations, recriminations and apologies, but I could see that my screw-up had really messed things up for JB. The only thing I could do to ameliorate the situation was to be with him. And so I offloaded my heavy bag to M and in my flapping pink chappals set out to do the last 10 km of the marathon with JB.

It was terribly hot and they opened the roads to traffic soon after, so instead of walking past cheering crowds, we dodged cars on JJ flyover. That long stretch on Marine Drive felt like forever. Another marathoner, feeling sorry for me, dropped his cap on my head as he jogged by. JB's legs began cramping, but he pushed on.

When we were about 200m from the finish line, JB drew his last reserves and began to run. You can't walk across the finish line, he said. At that point, I got off the track - this was JB's battle. He'd started it at 6.30 in the morning, and six and a half hours later, he completed those 42km.

Why I am an Engineer

Mrs. G taught us 11th and 12th grade English Lit. I was bored, nearly to tears, those two years in English class. Part of it was certainly the syllabus - The Tempest, Stories from East and West, and that dreary, dreary Great Expectations. But most of it, I attribute to Mrs. G. I missed terribly, the wit and sarcasm of Mrs. P who took us through The Merchant of Venice, often with a sense of humour entirely inappropriate for a class of 14 year olds. Mrs. G on the other hand, stuck closely to the prescribed teaching model.

Mrs. G and I mostly ignored each other's existence. I was content to either read ahead or doodle, and I guess she'd flagged me someone who would not/could not contribute to class discussions. Only one time, did we ever come into conflict.

Our term papers consisted of 5 essay questions, each for 20 marks. One of the questions I had to answer went something like 'Prospero is a perfect man. State whether you agree and explain why.'

Of course, I disagreed. Prospero for all his purported wisdom seemed like a very childish man. Imagine wrecking your enemies' ship, terrifying them into repentance with magical illusions, and then proclaiming that you forgive them. What meaning does forgiveness have when you've already wreaked vengeance? I wrote an indignant essay on why Prospero was, most decidedly, NOT a perfect man.

Admittedly, my essay was one sided (I never have been known for my balanced views), but it relied on the facts in the play. My interpretation of these facts, however, was unconventional and Mrs. G did not approve. I received my corrected term paper with a low mark - mostly because Mrs. G had marked my essay wrong, completely wrong, and had given me a zero. On an essay question!

I protested that the question had asked if I agreed and as I didn't, my essay was perfectly valid as it described my point of view. What was wrong with evaluating it on its own merits, particularly as it was substantiated with quotes from the text? No, said Mrs. G, a great many experts had studied The Tempest and had each come to the view the Prospero was in fact a perfect man. There was no question of a 12th grader disagreeing with the 'experts'. My essay was fundamentally wrong because Prospero was a perfect man. The experts had said so. After a long and protracted argument, Mrs G grudgingly allowed me 5 marks. As she noted it on my paper, she added in brackets 'grace marks'.

Mrs. G was, I think, partially responsible for my decision to take up the sciences. I'd been debating between the arts and the sciences and her blinkered outlook pushed me towards the sciences. Hard facts, I thought, blacks and whites, rights and wrongs. The blissful joy of not having to select your shade of grey (and be told it was wrong.) And so I signed up for Chem. Engg. Which is a different story.

Mrs. G - I'm sure you ushered many, many students into world of literature. I see a facebook fan page for you, proclaiming you the best teacher evah! In retrospect, I wonder if perhaps I was drawing a parallel between you and Prospero. Both lauded as perfect, but in my eyes, you fell so painfully short.

What does it feel like?

Went to Udaipur recently, and right outside one of the temples we visited was a little shop boldly advertising thandai. Of course we had some. The guys chugged down two glasses each, but I'd heard terrible tales of what it can do to you, so stuck with one. That turned out to be a wise decision. The guys soon got violently ill while I meditated on the laws of the universe and ate the most delicious grapes I'd ever tasted.

A friend once asked me if I knew what it felt like and so I tried to formulate a reply. When this analogy occurred to me, I felt like I'd had a minor epiphany (one of several that day.) So here goes:

Think of your brain as a processor. It's got a flood of information rushing into it by the millisecond from all your five senses. So while it's processing what you're seeing, it's also simultaneously processing what you're feeling, smelling, tasting, hearing. Some of this is in the background, but these sensations are being processed nonetheless.

After some thandai, it's like four of your senses are switched off and your entire brain's focus is on one single sense. So whatever sensation you're experiencing is heightened beyond anything you've experienced before. While I ate grapes, I couldn't think beyond the luscious sweetness of them. Each grape felt like a watermelon exploding in my mouth, drenching it with sweetness.

The other thing is that because your brain isn't shuttling between 5 different senses in one second and is entirely focused on one sense, there's a feeling that time is stretched. So each moment lasts infinitely long.

It's beautiful.

Haircuts

I just got one. Every woman in my office feels obliged to comment on it.

Nice haircut. That doesn't mean they like it, just that they noticed it.

Oh, I love your haircut! Translation: not bad.

Hmm, I liked the old look better. Which means your hair is vile. I can't believe you did that to yourself.

Ah, womanhood. Such joy.

Friends

So Mum and I were talking about you the other day, Rice said, and we were talking about how you don't have any friends.

What do you mean? Of course, I have friends. I have lots of friends!

Yeah, but not old ones... Like no one you've been friends with since you were six.

Well, there's... M and D, Rice said. Yeah, those were the only two we could think of.

(Don't you hate it when your family discusses you? And then tells you about it?)

So ok, I have only two friends who cross the 15 year mark, but this is how it works: I have pretty basic criteria to filter in friends from the vast universe.

a) I need to like you

b) I need to think you're fun

Pretty standard, right? I'm sure everyone has something like this in place. Here's the thing not many people realize though - this is a dynamic set. People are constantly changing; people's ideas and likes and dislikes are always in a state of flux. So while the basic rules don't change, your definition of someone you like or of someone you think is fun is bound to change.

Think of that diagram as a snapshot in time. My friends are limited to people in context. By context I mean people who are currently in my life. People with whom I've had a meal, watched a movie, shared a joke, discussed a book recently.

Everyone else has a spot on Facebook.

The funny thing that that conversation with Rice made me realize is that for a lot of people, a friend is anyone who was ever in context. Rice is a classic example. It probably helps that her circle is fairly parochial - everyone seems to know everyone else. Still, plotting the number of her friends over time next to mine is like a tidal wave over a placid lake.

While there's steady input into both our systems, from my system there's considerable output as well. Think of a unplugged tub with a tap running. Rice's system has the plug firmly in place. At some point, that tub is going to overflow. She's going to be driven crazy by endless coffee dates, lunch dates, movie dates, haircut dates...

Or maybe I'm just trying to justify being antisocial :)

Regrets

Sometimes, I want so badly to hear, 'Well, that was the trial round; now that you know what it's about, let's start your real life.'