Auroville Marathon:

At last, 8 months after starting to run, I have completed my first official half marathon at the event conducted by Auroville on its 40th anniversary. A big thanks to Chennai Runners, who has a big chunk in making a runner out of me, especially to Ram, Hari, Ramesh, Vidyuth and Narayanan. I knew Auroville will be a fantastic place to run and I had been training for the past two weeks for that. The travel from chennai was arranged by Karthik and we had a comfortable journey to Auroville and reached around 5.30. Auroville as expected was a serene and so pleasant. The food and stay was comfortable and the arrangement was great.

The race started by 7.00 the next morning. Ram started his Full marathon quest an hour earlier than us. It was the first trail that I am running outside chennai and it was exquisite and challenging. 90% of the run was on forest and barren lands. The uneven surface very challenging to run. I started my run very slowly, infact I was the last one to start from the start line. I continued at the same pace for about 40 minutes. I increased my pace after the first water point and I could lot strong runners struggling in the uneven surface. Good that I paced down myself initially. The volunteers were fantastic and crowds at the water point were great. Though I had a couple of walking breaks in between, I finished the run in 2.36 hrs, which is a pretty good one to me. I am sure, if at all I attend the next Auroville marathon I will be attempting a full.

A very satisfying and enjoyable run for me. The above photo says it all.

Innocent Questions:

It is quite amazing some of the questions the kids asks there parents these days. Some of the them will be really be amusing, some annoying and Some of the questions will forever be echoing on long. I heard one of such questions from my nephew Adhi, a seven old.

My sister and my Brother in law had planned to go to Thirupathi for their 10th wedding anniversary. They had purchased ticket for a special darshan early in the morning by 2.00 AM. So I called them up
around 8.00 in the morning to wish. I was talking to my sister over the phone after wishing her, then suddenly she started lauginhig out aloud. I could hear Adhi talking but could not hear properly. When I
asked about that my sister told, that it is a long story and not for the phone. She invited me for lunch, and told that we will discuss that over the lunch.

When I went there, she narrated me the following. In my newphew's world, there are only 3 languages, Tamil, English and Hindi. So he was confused when he heard a different language. He was some what terrified with the rough crowd inside the temple. He kept on asking why there was not any tamil written around the temple. His mother explained that they are in another town where they speak a language called telugu. So he took it as a game to find out places where it is written in Tamil. After finishing off the darshan and coming to the room came to her and asked "Mom you told that these people will talk in Telgu right?" his mother replied "Yes". He asked again "Then how will the God in the temple will understand what we pray in Tamil?". That was when she broke in a laughter over the phone. When I heard this even I started to laugh hard.

My sister told me about one more question Adhi asked before leaving to temple. They did not inform Adhi that they are going to temple until the last moment since he had a half day of school. So when my sister explained that they will going to a place called Thirupathi, he asked why they are going there. When she replied that they are going for darshan of God, he shot back "Come on Mom, you have a room full of statues and photos of God and why do you want to go a temple and pray. Isn't it enough that you do your prayer from here, why do you have to go there? She was dump struck for some time and gave a usual parental answer to go and ask his Dad the same question. I guess no one will be willing to answer this question :-)