Annual Delhi Half Marathon was October 15, 2006

This past Sunday I ran 21 kilometers, or 13 miles, for a charity supporting the healthcare and education of underprivileged children here in India.
The charity is named Deepalaya and can be visited on the website www.giveindia.org

I wanted to list a few interesting things that I saw during the Marathon:

1. A woman in her late 40's who was about 4’ tall ran the entire distance with no shoes.

2. A 67 year-old man was beating me during km 14-17. He passed me and laughed “Oh, come on, madam, stop lagging.” …thank goodness I passed him later.

3. Many small children lined the streets holding out their hands for “Madam” to give them a high-five along the way: “Run, madam, run” and “Bye, madam!”

4. One blind man walked the entire way holding one end of his horizontally-positioned cane, his middle-aged guide on the other end. (Thankfully for my ego, I finished before them as well.)

5. I saw a man running in the 7km race in a University of Chicago GSB shirt! I yelled to him that I went there; we were both so astounded!

Here is a list of statistics:

--I organized 66 new runners from my company who otherwise wouldn't have run.
--I raised enough money to pay for the education and medical expenses of one disabled, disadvantaged child for one year.
--I finished the race in 2 hours, 19 minutes, and 14 seconds; that means I ran about 9 km/h or 5.6 mi/h (that is like running a 10-minute-mile 13 times in a row!)
--Cheetahs run about 70 mi/h; I would be a good meal!
--I have only one blister, and it is on top of a mosquito bite on the arch of my left foot.

All in all, it was a very stirring experience. I passed many people, and was passed by many people. A few of us shuffled around, downshifting and accelerating, passing each other countless times. I had forgotten my MP3 player, which I usually listened to when I was “training.” At first, this alarmed me because my speed directly suffered in the past without music (not to mention my stamina and morale). There was nothing I could do about it if I wanted to be on time for the race. Running in silence, I decided, would be a good opportunity for reflection. I thought a lot about what I am doing here in India, about my work at my office, my friendships and my family in the states, and my plans for the next few years of my life. I do get a lot of time for introspection out here, but my analysis was bolstered by the marathon. (I type the rest of this teetering on the fine line of personal experience being cliché, but it is what it is.) It was hard to avoid analyzing my running, especially because I was pacing myself to make sure I finished the 21k. I thought about how I was “listening to my body” so to speak, and determining the best speed for Heather (Mom, I know that is what you would have suggested!). I was aware of others passing me, but not apprehensive about them “beating me” mostly because I was not in the marathon to win. I also cheered on the people who were stopped or were slowing; I tried to use words that were free of guilt—“you’re almost there, you can do it!” instead of “Don’t slow down, come on!” I think of myself as a motivator, and a team-player, but I also know I am competitive and I put a fair amount of pressure on myself to win, or at least exceed expectations. It did not surprise me that the marathon brought out the cheerleader in me, but I was shocked that I was not very bent out of shape when people passed me. I remembered something Dad told me when I was at The University of Michigan before an exam: “Heather, there will always be people smarter than you, and you will always be smarter than other people. You can’t stress yourself out trying to be the best. You should just focus on trying to do your personal best.” Well, it has taken about 4 years, but I realized I sure as hell could not run the 21k in 1:04:15, nor would 21k be impossible for me to go. I guess when I thought about Dad’s advice before, I thought it would be throwing in the towel—that if I did not try to be THE best, I would be doing myself a disservice. This Sunday, I learned that I could take my time making friends along the way, slow to slap hands with children (and speed up despite my exhaustion when they cheered), and still consciously challenge myself at each kilometer. So, I'm sorry, Dad, that your advice took so long to click, but as Carol reminds me “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” What an experience; what a lesson!

Finally, my favorite cheer along the way was “PUCCA!” a Hindi word I was familiar with from my office colleagues meaning that a plan was “firm”. I conjectured along the run that this “pucca” must mean “strong” or “strength” as well. I thought about how amazed I was when I was reading Dante’s Inferno and learned that “anchora” meant “still,” and how a boat’s anchor keeps the boat still, is strong, sturdy, enduring, and lasting. (A lot of DG imagery all of a sudden made more sense.) “Pucca,” I concluded, could have similar application. Well, after proudly using it on a few Indian fellows who were slowing, and watching them accelerate, I was beaming because of my mastery of a new Hindi word. Of course, as I was recounting the story of police officers and townspeople calling this word “pucca” out to me, my Indian friends became puzzled. After a few moments, Gaurav translated my mis-translation, “Heather, they were saying “buck-up” only!” Suddenly, it made so much more sense to everyone, and as usual, the joke was on me!

The Half Marathon website can be found at http://hdhm.indiatimes.com/

Journey to the Field of Kurukshetra, the site of the epic Battle of The Bhagavad-Gita

One weekend I was able to make a pilgrimage to Kurukshetra, the present-day city on the “Field of Kuru” from The Bhagavad-Gita. I was able to visit the temple and the Banyan Tree which mark the site where Shiva revealed himself to Arjuna. What a stirring experience! The heavy stone city gates were topped with a statue of the famous charioteer. The city was as modern as most that we passed on the way traveling north from Delhi: many automobiles dodging heavily-laden fruitcarts, busy kirana stores lining the streets selling paan and Lays potato chips to passers-by. Inside the city, we visited the museum which housed many regional artifacts and mythical dioramas, and also the sacred tank which is a venue for many of the city’s melas.
Beyond there, it was fairly easy to find the temple, an open-air bi-level marble structure that was punctuated by trunks of the Banyan upon which it was built (it made me think of Crusoe!). We removed our shoes, lest we profane the sacred parameter of the temple, and rang one of the large brass bells hanging above the threshold to sonorously signify our passage. Our feet shuffled across the smooth white marble floor as we proceeded past a few shrines, a pool for washing and tiptoed up a wide marble staircase of about 8 steps. There was a middle-aged Indian couple on the raised platform who looked as though this visit was a brief jaunt on a journey elsewhere in the Punjabi plain. Otherwise, our only company was a few small birds twittering in the verdant trees.
In the center of the marble platform, the “Immortal Banyan Tree” protruded from the floor with an oval marble wall around the base. On one side of the oval wall, at eye level, there was a glass enclosure, about the size of a chest, also in white marble. This had an idol inside of Krishna the Charioteer and a marble sculpted pair of feet painted in red with icons of the mythical items that rose from the sea with the churning of the ocean. Above the enclosure, the adventitious roots and branches of the Banyan tree shaded the area, the latter hanging heavy with green leaves and brass bells tied with red yarn.
In fact, loops of yarn encircled many parts of the tree that were within arms’ reach, including a chain that was anchored at the base of the tree reaching to a bell far out of reach overhead. The chain was so thickly bearded with the yarn the individual links disappeared. The pieces of red yarn are tied by religious pilgrims. The pilgrims journey to the temple at Kuru, and other sites of hierophany, and make wishes. They pray as they wish and tie a piece of the red yarn. If the wish is granted by the deity, they are accountable for returning back to untie the yarn (and consequentially return to pay tribute).
Of course I tied a piece of my own —how could I not participate! It was interesting that I did not notice the specific knots or spots that the yarn was tied until I myself had to tie a piece. It would be natural to think that people would tie their strings in an obscure location so they could identify it later, but many more were tied right on top of each other—just as the individual links of the chain disappeared, so did the individual loops of yarn. I am still not sure whether the heavily-knotted yarn was tied by people who were asking for critical prayers to be answered, or if they were merely trying to give their yarn character lest they cannot identify which to cut.