I started regular running in 2014 and until 2019 I had run few marathons. But my dear friend Bikas nudged me to try for 50K – Ultra Marathon.
I took his guidance and prepared for 3 months for Bangalore Ultra scheduled for Dec 2019 at picturesque GKVK agricultural campus. But two weeks before the run, my shoulder had developed nagging pain bringing my practice to a grinding halt.
As the pain didn’t alleviate after trying home remedies, I met Dr Ashaf Ali, cofounder of Curolive Multispecialty Centre, Bellandur.
I followed his advice for a week and the pain seemed to reduce significantly. But the moment I resumed running, the pain resurfaced and crushed my confidence. With just 5 days to go for the run, I completely gave up the hope of running my first Ultra Marathon. I spoke to family members and friends, and everyone suggested to give complete rest to body and skip upcoming event.
I revisited Dr Ashaf for further consultation. I asked him “Sir, what are my chances of running?”
He replied, “Sambit you still have 5 days before the event. You have practiced so hard in the last few months. Focus on your recovery. Don’t give up at this moment. Take the final call on Saturday based on your recovery”. His simple words were enough to bring me out of despair.
For next 4 days, my mind crisscrossed through various emotions. It was like all unwanted emotions Zumba dancing in front of me. It’s easy to listen to motivational talks but keeping the head high when the chips seem to be down is a different ball altogether. I lobbed a silent get-me-out-of-this expression.
I got lot better by Saturday and decided to run the next day.
On 22nd Dec 2019, I successfully completed my first Ultra Marathon.
It has been almost 2.5 years since that day. But those 14 days of pain and anguish taught me something very special.
“There will be times in life when we may not have an iota of confidence on ourselves. During such times, some people come as guardian angels and give us hope. They make us believe. They help us to regain our lost confidence”.
I am really thankful that Dr Ashaf didn’t give up on me when I went through such phase. That experience helped me to write the book “Anybody Can Run”.
It was indeed a great pleasure to meet him yesterday and present a copy of my book.
Have you experienced such magical moments in life? Do share your thoughts in comments.
Do you know what’s the best time in the 4 years of pursuing engineering studies?
Well, it’s the phase when you have got campus placement in the third year and you are left with the entire 4th year to enjoy time with friends.
I got placed in one of the top IT companies in India in 2004 and for the next 1 year, I had a gala time with friends. But no good time lasts forever. It was May 2005 and we were left with just another month in college. We had no idea of what kind of future was waiting for us after joining the company.
We wanted to live in that moment of bliss forever. The best way you can capture a moment is by writing. A friend named Subhra suggested to write a Souvenir for our batchmates. In no time, 13 people got together for this short assignment. Some of us locked ourselves in Subhra’s home for a week and went on with the job in hand.
I had no interest in doing anything about Souvenir. Even till today, I don’t know why they chose me to be a part of the writing team. The rest of the folks in the group were better in terms of studies and I thought they were more suited for the work which was about to start.
The only reason I stayed back with them was I would spend a few days with friends for one last time.
For the first two days, there were heated debates about the content, structure and formatting of the book. As expected, I had nothing to add to the discussion. By the third day, everyone was up to something and I was sitting idle. There were still 3 to 4 days to go and it started to get a bit mundane with nothing to do as other friends started going about their business.
On the fourth day, I picked a pen and paper and started scribbling some random thoughts. After few hours, I wrote something which finally made some sense to me. It was a four-line poem about a friend. When I showed the poem to friends, they loved it. I wrote a few more and they liked those poems as well. So, I decided to write poems for all 93 friends in my class.
When we departed from Subhra’s place after a week, I was feeling really happy and accomplished. For the first time in the entire 4 years of college, I felt I had done something worthwhile. When the Souvenir got released, all the friends were really happy to read the poems. I thought probably it was the beginning of a new journey.
I joined my first job in a prestigious organization a few months later and soon forget about writing as the focus shifted to learning new technology and other skills. This was in July 2005.
One fine day, in mid-2008, some random thought pushed me to write again. This time, I enjoyed writing articles and those were well-received by friends and colleagues. I was an active member of the environment club of the company that worked on various sustainability initiatives. Some of my writings got published in company newsletters. I got an opportunity to meet the Chief Sustainability Officer of my organization. I sent him some of my articles and he really liked those.
For one article, he complimented, “This article is of International standard.”
I was on cloud nine and brimful of confidence. I was determined to write every day and push my limits. I fancied writing my first book in 2009. But there were days when no new thought came to mind and I couldn’t write anything. The more I wrote, the more I encountered such lean spells. Slowly, a fear crept inside my mind that probably I would run out of ideas and I won’t be able to write good articles. Then came a moment when I completely stopped writing.
10 years went by just like a whisker and I didn’t write anything during that time.
In all these years, only one person was the custodian of my dream and she is none other than my mother. She was the happiest person when I told her about my intention of book-writing for the first time. When I stopped writing altogether, she reminded me from time to time to start writing again.
I was still far away from being a regular writer, rather I was someone who had a distant dream of writing a book one fine day.
In Jan 2019, my brother Sujit gifted me a diary and a pen on the occasion of New Year. I asked him why he wasted money on such things as those were of no use to me. I kept both the things on my desk and forgot about them.
After two weeks, I was about to close my laptop after a long day at work when my eyes caught sight of the dairy. That left me steady and unblinking for a couple of moments. I thought of writing something as my brother had gifted it with so much love. But there were no thoughts in my mind that were worthy of writing on a fresh new diary. So, I started writing a to-do list for the very next day. On the next day, I again opened the diary to write the to-do list for the subsequent day. In the next couple of months, I became more regular in writing my daily activities.
Thanks to running, I started to pen down few running experiences on social media. Initially, I used to write short notes of 4 to 5 lines about my running. One day, I wrote a longer story about running a particular event and a friend named Sudheer Gopidi complimented on Facebook, “You write very well. Gripping. You must consider authoring a book soon”. That day, my dream of writing my first book back in 2009 got rekindled after a decade.
In October 2019, coincidently I joined a three-month seminar by Ravi Kumar Sapata about fulfilling life’s goals. One of my goals during that time was to write regularly. The structure of the program helped me to get back to writing after a break. Thanks to Amit Mathur and Ugo Ogbonnaya who held me accountable to complete my assignments. At the end of three months, I was writing more frequently than any previous time.
In 2019, I completed TRORT Marathon, Bengaluru Marathon and Bengaluru Ultra Marathon and these experiences helped me to write more often. During the COVID-19 lockdown, running and writing were the greatest tools that helped me to deal with anxiety, depression, loneliness and every other thing that didn’t work for me.
I appeared for a job interview in the later part of 2020. During the managerial round discussion, most of my answers were excerpts from the articles that I had written 5 to 6 months back. The thoughts were original and I could be just myself while sharing my ideas. That resonated with the interviewer and I finally cracked the interview.
I started running and that inspired my writing. My upcoming book “Anybody Can Run” is a result of the effort that has gone in the last five to six years towards running.
But it started back in 2005 when the friends showed faith on me and that made all the difference. That marked the beginning of this wonderful journey of being a writer.
The Gold Dust
Running is much more than just a fitness program.
Pen down your thoughts after each run.
The more you write, the more it will heal you.
A pen is mightier than a sword. Isn’t it?
Otherwise, how could I have connected with you sitting thousands of miles apart?
Have you heard about SPIC MACAY (The Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music and Culture Amongst Youth)?
If your answer is NO, try to search for it on Google.
The following story dates back to 2011. This incident made a lasting impression on my life. I was awakened to the meaning of the muscled word “Power”.
Students were organizing a cultural event at TERI University, New Delhi, and an esteemed guest of SPIC MACAY was supposed to grace the occasion. We were fortunate to have Pandit Rajendra Prasanna with us that day who plays the flute as well as shehnai.
We had planned for the event well in advance and all the arrangements were in place except one. We had completely forgotten to identify someone who could introduce the guest to the audience.
Pandit ji as well as some of his fellow musicians had already arrived on the stage. When I requested a couple of students to initiate the introduction, they politely declined. Finding no other way, I quickly referred to Wikipedia to find a few lines to say about our guest for the evening.
The sun was about to set as I hesitantly edged close to the mic. An audience of more than 150 that included Professors, students and college staff had already taken their seats in the amphitheater. I took a few deep breaths until waves of dizziness lessened and started the introduction.
In order to avoid further discomfort, I didn’t look at the audience at all. I just tried to focus on few lines that I had scribbled on a small paper a couple of minutes back.
For the next several minutes, there was a pin drop silence except for my voice. That really unnerved me. I finished the intro and requested Pandit ji to start playing his musical instrument.
Panjit ji took the mic and said, “I really liked the calm and slow manner in which you introduced me.”
That sentence was sufficient to put an end to my struggle of the last 10 min. I walked to my friends sitting in the amphitheater to enjoy the rest of the evening.
For the next 20 min or so, Panjit ji played beautiful classical ragas on his long flute. He was aptly supported by a Tabla player and few other musicians. The evening looked beautiful with soothing music and a cool breeze blowing across the place. However, at that moment, I was unaware that I was about to discover something so celestial that would change my overall perception.
Then Panjit ji took out a very small flute from his bag for the next performance. All of us got super-excited as he described few memories about this flute before he blew his magical air into the flute. When he began playing, it felt as if a divine space transcended at that moment.
There were two medium-sized trees on both sides of the stage. When Panjit ji paused for a few seconds after playing the small flute, a large flock of birds came from nowhere and sat on one of the trees. They started chirping as the music had stopped. All of us were surprised except Panjit ji. He resumed playing his small flute and the birds stopped the chatter. Panjit ji came to a halt again after a couple of minutes and birds resumed their twittering. It felt as if the birds were part of the jugalbandi (a performance in Indian classical music).
A few moments later, all the birds glided over the musicians and sat on the tree on the other side of the stage.
To witness something like this was miraculous. Panjit ji continued playing his flute for some more time and the birds enjoyed the music for the entire duration. When the birds flew away, they had already left an extraordinary memory for all of us to cherish for the rest of our lives.
Panjit ji felt extremely emotional and we echoed his sentiments.
This episode unleashed a new definition of “Power”. When you can influence others with your love and passion for any activity, without applying any force, you have discovered a vast source of untapped energy. You can use this power to change the world.
Friends are forever, someone said, as I took the last local train to Hi-tech city, Hyderabad. Minutes later I was in the middle of myriad of thoughts, good enough to complete a philosophical trilogy. As rest of the travellers cherished their stories of friendship, I was kept reminded of Amit, my old friend. Amit, the only one who was able to qualify:
Look from the middle, they are plenty, Come near the sea shore, there is one in twenty.
My heart started pounding as I was engulfed with what happened to Amit and I just couldn’t stop there as I started looking for my Parker pen and a piece of paper.
25 years ago when Earth saw the first glimpse of Amit’s cute face, no miracle happened. However as everyone’s parents from middle class families’ dream of their children to become doctors or engineers, there was no exception in his case as well. Now when he wakes up in the morning, he becomes part of the race, a never ending race of becoming successful in life. He has to work hard at office, keep on improving his skills and go higher up in the carrier. Buy a new home, get married to a simple and understanding girl, take care of children; it has been the protocol for everyone.
His elder brother, Anis dreamed of the same 7 years back and now heads a big organization. Anis is now well settled and has lot of plans to take his company to the fortune 500 list.
The youngest one Arjun, is into final year of engineering and appearing for interviews to get into a MNC and keep his foot on cherished information technology industry.
Until now Amit’s family has given the perspective of a happy family and everyone seems to be happy. But his mother is suffering from one of the most dreaded diseases i.e. cancer and she into 2nd stage. They have very less time left to bring her back to life. If they take 1 more year, she will be into 3rd stage and after that they just have to wait until she takes her last breathe.
Amit has lot of ambitions in his life and his elder brother has to make his company the best among a lot. His younger brother has just 1 year to enjoy his final year, just 1 year to get into a good IT company and just 1 year to enjoy the days with friends, which is the best part of everyone’s life.
They have everything with them except time for their mother.The three brothers don’t have enough time to take care of their ailing mother as they have higher ambitions. What a shame? Shouldn’t they take care of their mother? However the fact remains the same. The mother, who spent all her life just to see her kids to become successful, does not have much time left. All she wants is everyone’s time to look after her.
Our world is heading towards an unknown yet very dangerous, an unseen yet very devastating, an unheard yet very destructive phenomenon, “GLOBAL WARMING”. The earth which supported human civilization for the last 6000 years to achieve the current success, can we let it die? It’s already in the 2nd stage of cancer and we just have 40–50 years left before it dies of the effects of this slow poison. We, the children have to work together to get our mother of this living hell. All our mother needs is time from her children, some time to think of her problems, ways to get her out of this trouble. Mother has heart bigger than universe, so she maintains fine equilibrium between all, even any of her children creates problems. However when her pain becomes unbearable, she responds in the form of cyclones, floods, volcanic eruptions; and those have just intensified over last few years due to Global Warming.
So my dear friends, let’s take some quality time of our busy schedule to help our mother out of this trouble called “Global Warming”.
If not Earth, then Where If not Now, then When If not You, then Who…
I am glad that you made it through entire article. Share your comments below.
In this cutthroat competitive world, we are always pushed to complete things before the deadline. We are competing with colleagues to get that promotion, racing against fellow drivers on road to reach the destination faster. This pressure has impacted our peace of mind adversely and we often don’t realize this.
Many people take up running and the pressure to finish the run faster creeps into their mind. They go to a practice run and try to outrun their partner.
Ask few runners, “How was your run today?”, they would most likely respond saying, they finished in a certain amount of time. It’s not wrong to express it in such a way, but solely focusing on timing (unless someone is a professional runner) limits the experience.
Remember that if you want to treat running as your hobby, make it enjoyable and not a pressure game.
When we start to learn something new, we need to commit some time and energy to learn it. Many times, it requires us to devote time every day. As humans we get so intimidated by contemplating about bottlenecks that we don’t even get started. When we muster some courage to get things going, many unforeseen challenges crop up to stop our progress.
This sounds familiar, isn’t it?
Then what is that thing which can keep us going?
Inspiration lasts just for few days. Motivation doesn’t last forever. Self-belief often gets us going, but as challenges surge, out mind comes up with lot of doubts that instill fear. If we think having a partner to accompany us might help the matters, we may be proved wrong as well. Partner will have his/her excuses as well which will only complicate the matter.
That leaves us with no other reason than “Attitude”. That’s right, our attitude is the key factor that will play the most significant role in our journey. It will help us to stay afloat when tide is high. It will repel all the negative emotions and allow us to channelize our focus and energy to actual objective. It will give courage to eliminate the disapproval of naysayers.
