26-11 anniversary

India recently observed the First Anniversary of the 26/11 carnage. This day has been unofficially and rightfully marked as the ‘Black day’ in the Indian calendar.

The mayhem unleashed by the foreign terrorists left around 166 people dead and around 244 injured. Many of the dead included children and women. I cannot even begin to fathom the grief that must’ve struck the families of those who lost their lives in this horrific event.

I shall not describe in detail what happened in those three days last year. Most of us know about the events that unfolded, courtesy of the in-depth reports by the media, who were also shot at by the terrorists.

All I want to say is that there have been very less global events that have moved me as much as this one did. The heroics of the NSG commandos like Major Unnikrishnan or Gajendra Singh and other members of the Mumbai police like Hemant Karkare (who was the chief of the Mumbai Anti-terrorist squad), Vijay Salakar and Ashok Kamte, all of who -fearlessly laid down their lives to save others, the hotel staff at The Taj Mahal hotel and the Oberoi towers had their own stories of bravery as they showed why India is considered as one of the top countries when it comes to hospitality, by taking full-responsibility of the guests at their hotels and ensuring their safety even if it meant losing their own lives, all are both moving and courageous at the same time.

There are a number of other people whose brave stories might not have even reached the ears of the public or got the kind of media attention that the others got. I salute each and every one of them.

As people from all walks of life, across the country, united to pay homage to the victims, I too observed a 2 minute silence at my home. As I watched on the television, the various kinds of events being held across the country and when each news-channel had it’s own version of a story of bravery by someone or the other, I just couldn’t help but shed a tear in the memory of those killed. The kind of unity shown in these peaceful candle-light processions which saw individuals from all social-levels of the society ranging from actors, social-activists, industrialists to the common man like IT professionals, waiters of the two hotels involved in the event, wives and children of anyone who directly or indirectly got affected by the 26-11 terrorist strike—is truly a tribute in its own way that shows why India is called a land of harmony where a person from any religion can live peacefully.

Like the millions of people across the country, I too am furious and tempestuous at the people who planned out such an outrageous act of terror and who enjoyed the consternation of the public. But, the sole terrorist caught alive – Kasab continues to live in the jail...still alive and still breathing. I just hope that for once, justice in our country is swift and fair.

May all the souls of those who passed away one year ago on one those three ill-fated days , rest in peace.

PARKOUR JAM @ Hyderabad

'An AMAZING and Exhilarating experience' is how one would describe the Jam that happened in the city recently.I am talking about 8th November, the day that saw one of the largest Parkour jams in the city of Hyderabad.There were a total of 21 people who turned up for the event. We had traceurs from all corners of the city and also from the other end of the country(NOS turned up for this jam from Mumbai). It was a cloudy and pleasant day - a perfect day for some action.
We had zeroed in on Golconda Fort as our venue. Now this place happens to be one of the archaeological landmarks of Hyderabad. It's a fort that was built in around the 16th century and has lots of well preserved walls, pillars, parapets and basically everything that made it worthy enough to be called a true 'Parkour Heaven'. So that day,from 9:00am until noon, the fort saw a bunch of around one and a half dozen energetic and super-charged guys jumping all over it.We had members of Team Karma in full attendance as well as members of Team Secret Fury, one man from team Nuts(Mumbai), and of course some like Kage,CJ and me were the ones who were there representing themselves and not any particular team. We all assembled at the venue and started our stretching and warm-ups as soon as we entered the premises of the fort.
We started first with a session of warm-ups that didn't last too long as most of the guys were very eager to start Parkour. A few wall-runs, leaps(minus the rolls), cat leaps, 360 cats, crane-jumps and more leaps(with rolls) were what made up our first stop session. Pretty soon, our acts started attracting a good crowd and they just watched in awe as we leapt, rolled and jumped from one spot to another. We continued further into the premises while practising some moves on the way.

Our second major stop was a place where there were huge lawns of soft green grass. The flipping-guys showed us how cool it looked when you flipped here. Many also tried leap and roll on the soft lawns as they leapt one after the other onto two rectangular patches of pretty wet grass (here, we had our first and a little worrisome injury as a traceur slipped on the grass and hit his head on the stone-border. He was dazed for a few minutes but then in the true spirit of PRKR...was back diving and jumping around).
Then it was the turn of the diving kong to challenge us. We found this really tempting place where only the brave tried their luck of getting the diving kong right. Many were initially unsuccessful but then with repeated attempts, most of them made the jump.
Moving on we came across a place where there was a high level wall(around 40 feet) which looked down onto a flat platform (which was the roof of a closed corridor). The guys climbed onto this high wall and made some daring jumps onto the lower level ...the move was spectacular but soon, the security guard started warning us of our safety.The boys however completed the jumps and proceeded over the lower level and finally hit ground level after a few more jumps. It was well choreographed and the moves were caught on tape from several different angles.
We finally ended up at a spot (in the photo) that had these various level pillars/supports (whatever you want to call them). It's a great place for PRKR and what we like to call 'PK heaven' spot. Here was a spot that had obstacles of all shapes, sizes and range. A beginner to a pro could practise out his moves here...and that's exactly what all of us did. We again attracted a fairly large crowd here. People were stopping and looking at us with those 'are these guys monkeys? or what?' look on their faces. And to a traceur, calling him a monkey can be a compliment. We practised for around forty-five minutes here before exhaustion finally caught up with us. Then it was time for the group-photo shoot and we shot some pretty decent photos that covered all the 21 people present at the jam.
It was then that the guys started feeling hungry. The clock had struck 12 and most of us hadn't had our breakfasts before coming here. So we finally wound up what I would like to call - our very-successful Jam session and headed out to grab a bite and head home.
The best thing about the jam was that people from all parts of the city came to know each other. We shared our experiences in PRKR and encouraged others to try out the daring moves. I was eager to meet other traceurs since the day I had stepped into this amazing and adrenaline-pumping world of PARKOUR, but so far had only managed to meet one or two other people who knew about PRKR. But now, post-jam, I had gotten to know so many new faces from my city itself, and it would be a shame not to say that most them are very talented. We practised together like a brotherhood, kept encouraging our fellow traceurs to try out different moves...all in all a big happy charged-up family.
peace!

The Weight !

Hi, when I had finally blogged here again after a looong gap...I had decided that I would post at least one blog per week (in spite of the fact that hardly anyone reads them...apart from my good friends on whom I more or less forcefully thrust my blog-link. ;o)

So, here I am, sitting on my laptop at 6:40AM (yeah...it's early)...and already late for my weekly blog post.

Today, I'll have to tell you about one problem that has been acting in a very peculiar manner ever since I was a kid. And that's 'My Weight'. Nope- I am not overweight and this isn't me cribbing about how to loose weight but it's exactly the opposite.

This is the story of those underweight people who do all they can to gain some weight but only end up cursing the weighing machine when the needle refuses to budge beyond their current weight. I, unfortunately fall into the category of those underweight people....you know the lanky ones with the bony frames whose shoulder-blades visibly seem to be the only thing holding their bodies and preventing them from falling into a heap of twig-thin bones and skin.

I have been keeping a watch on my weight and surprisingly and rather peculiarly - it seems to be following a certain pattern. In this pattern- my weight increases by a few (visibly negligible) kilos every 3 years or so. Every time in those three years, I climbed onto a weighing-machine - the needle refused to go beyond my previous weight. It was as if- all the weighing machines in the world had conspired against me and had been bribed not to show an increase of my weight.

It all started when I was in the 9th standard.... my weight then was around 53kgs. That's not bad because in that age- most boys tend to be around the same weight-category that I was in. And moreover, people didn't tease or mock me saying I was underweight. Plus I was one of the good athletes of the school (my best friend SiD was even better than me btw...I was the second best)...so almost no-one said anything about my weight.

The problem was that my weight seemed to remain stagnant over the next couple of years. It remained the same until I was reached my 12th standard. And all this while, guys around me were either growing taller or broader. I remained the bunch of bones with the minimal muscles of the class. And then in my 12th standard, one fine day- some distant relative who had come to our place after a very long time commented how I had grown a bit since he had last seen me(and that it turned out was when I was in the 6th standard).....at one point I was angry that he said i had grown only a bit in the last 6 years. But then I realized that the person had actually given me a compliment .....a compliment about my weight......something that occurred more rarely than the Hale-Bopp comet or India winning a cricket world-cup.

So, there I was, on cloud 9 looking at myself in the mirror and smiling away. I took out the old weighing machine in our house, and after a small prayer in front of it- stepped onto it. The needle shot towards 57 and almost gave me a shock(the shock of gaining so much weight would have been too good for me to withstand). ...then the needle fluctuated a bit, danced around 55 and finally settled on 56kgs. That meant I had gained a good 3 kilos in the last three years. An achievement in its own. It was not as if I didn't make any attempts to gain weight. I had two glasses of milk everyday(thanks to my mom who would patiently coax me to have the milk by adding stuff like chocolate syrup or making fruit-shakes or adding vanilla essence....this was because I was never a fan of cow-milk right since my childhood...those adventures will be unveiled in another blog some-day) to instigate bone-growth. Every time I realised my weight hadn't fluctuated even in the smallest possible way-I used to start having more food (over-ate) than my stomach could bare, for months in the hopes of gaining weight and had even started eating more and more fatty stuff like butter and good ol' ghee.

The next time I was this happy was when I was in the final months of my college. We had just 4 more months of college life left and my weight- since the day I had stepped into the college had remained on 56kgs. Since it was college, my parents blamed the constant weight on the hostel food (the hostel food was the first criminal who would be instantly crucified in any case of ill-health or even bad marks). But then, again it had been months since I had last checked my weight. In the first three years, I would shuffle around in my pocket for a 'new' one rupee coin every time I went to the railway-station and then go on checking my weight in at least 3 machines in the hopes that one of them would be faulty and show that my weight had gone beyond 56kgs. But this time was different, I had had the feeling that I had put on some decent amount of weight in the last 4-5 months. And again, after a short prayer to the almighty (whom I only seemed to remember before my exams and before I stepped onto a weighing machine)- I gingerly stepped onto the weighing machine. This weighing machine was the one at the railway station and so it didn't have any needles to watch for, only adding to my anxiety and testing my patience. The machine made a few rattling noises and with a short burp- chucked out the small yellow card that shows the weight on one side. I picked it up and turned it around - and Voila! It showed my weight as 59kgs. I was happy and made a note that it had been more the three years since my last incident of weight gain. Just to make sure that the weighing machine wasn't lying to me or hadn't been tampered with just to make fun of me, I checked my weight on two more machines and they all showed the same.....one of them even showed an additional o.5kgs on the 59kgs. So that was it, had gained 3 whole kilograms. Over the next few weeks, I publicly and unabashedly advertised the fact that I had put on weight to most of my friends and to anyone who cared to listen to a guy who wanted to talk about his weight and who expected a reaction from you.

I sit here today, almost one year later, weighing 59kgs and knowing pretty well that my weight will remain the same until 2011. Let's hope that I break this trend that my body seems to have set ad that I gain weight before 2011. Pray for me!

Peace!

:o)