Well well well, this must be the month of bumper sticker updates at the speed of lightning.. but, I feel like writing.. publicly voicing my opinion, which is sort of rare in itself. After all, who cares for "another" blog about a preppy, middle-class, athlete-wannabe's rambles on life, the number 10 and such things anyway? I figured this journal is a way to get my buddies, spread over too many different places, to write me once in a while and tell me where my synapses are firing incorrectly... so, Mr. Hall and Ms. Davis, if you be reading this, I expect unsolicited wisdom on all things mundane.

Ive been thinking about domestic bliss lately. I am the epitome of individualism in my books.. owing partially to my aunts bouncing me on my head as a baby :) Several brain cells were damaged prematurely and I dont seem to process things linearly anyway. I think too many people are fond of telling us about what we cannot do. My work is managing a small team of people whose well being matters to me at the end of the day. People I work for are fun and the job itself is challenging to the extent it can be so, I dont mind it at all. My friends used to tell me Ive got a head for business and small or big, its good to be in the spin of all things commerce. It beats a 9-5 job anyday of the week and I doubt my temperment would do well in the presence of authority, such as a boss. Ive been known to jump fences from camps and any other such confining spaces so, this is my only option for survival, self-reliance.

Speaking of domestic bliss, being a foot-loose athlete does not qualify one for a normal relationship. In fact, the life of an athlete is very boring, difficult, boring, ascetic, boring and oh, boring. I was reading about some Olympic dreamers that wanted a nibble at normality, in an article that was talking about L.Armstrong coming out of retirement. I dont compare to L.Armstrong or anyone fast and fabulous but, I think Im in this sport of keeps.. so, translating that to the day-to-day requriements of being in bed by 9pm is sorta funny and as Ive realized in the last year of really trying hard to get to bed by 9pm, very simple. No eating outside (I went to a restraunt last weekend with the peeps and had food-poisoning sorts of effects for two days.. and I didnt even eat that much), no socializing, no late nights, no parties. I cannot even eat as much as I want and when I want. When Im unhappy, the parts it shows in the most are my food habits. I went for three years without ice-cream and then went on a binge for about a week in August. Definitely something to think about.

So, Ive come to the conclusion that though several prospects seems interesting and even appealing (what a change! A few years ago I wouldve run screaming from anything resembling a steady relationship) its going to be a tough choice to "settle" for working through a relationship where there are no common interests, goals or just plain support for such goals. Ive decided to drown my sorrows by sniffing some butterscotch ice-cream and bidding goodbye to boys for good.

Gotta get to work on that 10K time, get my thoughts in order and stop waiting for things to happen........ I dont want to wake up when I am 35 and regret not running down the road not taken.. I feel like Christopher Columbus today :) No fancy foreign coach, trainer or best-friend can be of any help in my quest.. just sympathize with the comedy of the situation and tell me that they will stick around, no matter that my brain is confused by this sudden tendency for domestic bliss.

Im on a roll......... All the usual suspects are in play -- unheated pools, difficult roads, desi mama's yelling "sakkad madam" on my morning jogs, interesting clients, a receding economy, stock market investments crashing left and right.. and I couldnt care less. I woke up with this song "Kabhi Kabhi" from the movie Jaane tu ya jaane na, playing in my head.. I used to run with some folks that thought it beneath themselves to watch Hindi movies, forget Kannada flicks, right? I love languages! Most of my Ipod is crammed with the latest and greatest vernacular verses. I have been super happy for some reason and Im going to hold on to that feeling.. for all the nights of dark distress and doubt.

I have a new friend, Joop. Now ol' Joop is quite the character.. he is rather rotund and OK about that fact. Further, Joop is full of life and has this radius of extemporaneous happiness and strength that I love. He is my new dost! Joops weight problems are the butt of a lot of jokes but, he doesnt care! He constantly laughs at my issues with food and stupidity surrounding it thereof. More on Joop soon... he is a handful to write about.

I have been dealing with some major frustration with international travel and the time things take now-a-days. As I grow older however, I have realized that there is no point in fixating on what is frustrating us and letting go of everything else. Hard work is not glamorous, I tell myself. As long as I work every day to the best of my ability, I am set. So, that is what I have been doing. As usual, I have more than one interesting project on my plate and this week saw about five very late nights (yes, its only Friday today!) and early mornings. I managed to get in some exercise three of those five days and I was psyched about that. The mind is a very powerful place. We do need to stay connectd with our goals and dreams, no matter what the odds and how they shift with our relative stress at work, with relationships etc.

I have also been missing my friend that passed away in June, very deeply. September marked the third month he was gone and I know, like his mom knows, that he is never coming back. To tell you a little story about my friend, he was an artist, loved rock music and bikes (the ones you pedal, not the ones that smoke up the roads), was a very good son, a very good friend and went to Swaziland to work with the Peace Corps. He really believed that his life could make a difference and he did what he thought he could with it. I remember being mad at him for this and that and being a lousy friend in general because I couldnt grapple with his loss. He was diagnosed with Gliblastoma more than a year ago and what a horrible day it was when I heard about it. He is the only friend in my set of friends who has travelled all the way to my humble home in India, to visit my parents, to tramp around on a holiday while being taken aback by so many cultural nuances of our country (which was why I was mad at him) and just being a regular, honest guy.. so, to say that he is a shade in my own heart would be putting it lightly.

I was driving home after the hell week (almost week, I know its only Friday now.. it seemed like Saturday yesterday) and had to pass through Cubbon Park on the way. I was 7pm, and I had slept about 5 hours the night before, badly. There was a kid on the street, you know, the same one you always see and never pay attention to and angrily tell yourself "I am not supporting poverty by paying this kid!" doing tricks. I think he was less than 10 and had a whole bag of tricks, flip turns, a funny cap with a ball attached to a string on that cap demonstrating the principles of some physics lesson Im sure I have excelled at in the past, no shoes and dirt covering every inch of his little body, that was not covered with clothes. I totally cracked. Here we are, the great nation that is "moving up the value chain", whatever the hell that means, having to sit in traffic 95 minutes of our day, one way so, lets forget about exercise and healthy lives entirely (even for us just working class people) and a side of our humanity that will never let us sleep. I have had so many major conflicts in my life about being a triathlete. How do you drive home, with ten of these kids banging on your door in that 95 minute drive, walk into your gym and hit the treadmill for 30 minutes, as if nothing happened?

But, I do have the answer for that today.. after sleeping a whole 12 hours starting 8pm last night :) I think that a great love for endurance sports keeps me scratchproof to some extent. So many disappointments to face in life, so many conflicts and so many problems one seems to be able to do less and less about as we grow older.. When I was younger, I didnt want to be a paper-pusher. Save a few exciting projects that come my way, sometimed I feel, I am exactly that, a paper-pusher. And I do it gladly because somewhere I have a small sense of responsibility for the people who work for me and the people I work for. Besides, if my buddy thought his life could make a difference and went after it like there was literally no tommorow, I wont settle for less.

I dont think that my being a triathlete will solve the world's problems... but it solves my problems and helps me sleep at night, spend less time being a consumer at some air-conditioned mall and eating more than I need to. I am OK with that demand on my self.

Its a brand new day!

I woke up with a headache and infinite optimism! No, thats not catch-22, that is PERFECT. Its a nice, bright day outside.. and I am not going to complain about the smog. I love being home, I love being close to people I love, I love working hard towards my dreams, I love working, period.

Once in a while, I shop for music. My IPOD has been on a stale re-run lately and badly needed refreshment. I got a witchin' new one as a gift recently and obviously that meant retail therapy, in order to populate it. I watched an hour of this movie, Taare Zameen Par on my flight back home. I guess if I were not delirious from exhaustion, wild horses couldnt have kept me from finishing the movie.. However, I did buy the sound-track and may I say that the song "Jame Raho" has replaced the Suprabhatam in my house. I've listened to it four times today morning already.

So many new plans and paths and adventures coming up! I will be more regular in updating my blogs, thas for sureeeeee.......... now back to making dates with butterflies and living a little.