Saluting the unpretentious runner

(Posted on my Facebook page on April 10, 2012)

I have seen many runners. Being the slowest runner on earth, I have seen most of the others go past, causing me to check if I have really been moving at all.

I have seen many fully loaded runners. They can tell you why they wear the shoes they wear because their gait is like this and the pronation is like that. They wear a Garmin on their hands and a synched heart rate monitor strapped to their chest before they leave home. They wear drifit Tees and can tell between one brand and another like I can tell a dog from a cat. They can tell you all about the right diet, how they needed to calibrate the balance between the zinc intake and the magnesium. Because they are experts, listening them talk about minerals, you can be excused for thinking that they have acquired mining rights in Karnataka or Goa. They measure everything to the last detail, to the second decimal place, they can tell you that on a certain day with the temperature at a certain level, how much water they must sip and at what speed so that they can maintain the right level of hydration which when combined with the correct everything else will allow them to breach their previous PB. It took me several years before I figured out that PB is runners lingo for personal best and did not draw inspiration from the periodic table as i used to think it may have had to do with the leaden feeling I was left with after my run, just goes to show how poor a chemistry I share with running.
Running today is getting very very competitive. I saw it from close quarters at the recently concluded Hot Pursuit held at Kharghar. Lest I be rejected for reasons of my slow pace, considering that the fastest runners would have covered twice the distance in half the time (that makes them four times faster then me, if my mathematics has not failed me) I opted out and became a volunteer instead. Some teams got rearranged, some even roped in professionals, yet others dropped those that they felt were unprofessional. It was a fun event but somewhere along the way, for many, the joy of running was lost.

Which is why the story of Mumtaz Queireshi, Apurba Das, Umesh bhai, Kirti bhai and Dr Ramani needs to be told. None of them even own a watch to wear when they run and if they are wearing one, it is only to help them remind themselves to get home before they get locked out by an irate wife who had allowed their husbands out but to only get the morning bread and milk. Most of these gents run in just about any clothing. Not for them the drifit, or even the body suits that marketeers would promote as being great to hasten recovery after a long run. They are not too fussed about shoes either, they wear what they have until it is so torn that they absolutely need to get a new one. Not for them the concerns that stem from having more than one shoe which would then require them to have a shoe rotation policy, much like Dhoni's, except that rotating functional shoes is less of a wasted effort than rotating non performing players.

These men simply run. they run for fun, they enjoy running, in a very uncomplicated way. They are supremely unfussed. Not for them the run walk combination of Galloway, not for them the nice body incline to get gravity to share the responsibility of carrying them forth in the manner of Chi running that would make Danny Dreyer and his protege, Abhijit Pradhan proud. They don't spend hours going through Runners World pouring through articles to see how to run better. You wil never hear them say, "Oh I need to find 2 minutes 22 seconds somewhere, to improve my timing." Because they simply run. On days when they have time and they are liking it, they run more. On days when they are not liking it, they don't run less.

Not that they are poor runners by any stretch of imagination.

I remember what Kirti bhai told me after SCMM 2012. "Thoda sa slow bhaga," he said, causing me to derive what I knew was perverse pleasure in someone else's self confessed poor timing. But the joy was shortlived. "I did 2: 04, though I think I should have pushed myself to finish in under 2." Kirti bhai is north of 60 and this is slow timing for him. I remember another exchange with him, when i was extoling the benefits to him of wearing shoes like mine which look like they are made for running in the rain. A couple of minutes into my spiel, I paused out of courtesy to see if he had anything to say. "I simply take my wet shoes and wrap them up in newspaper and they are dry by the next morning," he said simply and was off before i could do any more showing off.
Or consider Dr Ramani. His best FM is under 4: 30, so when I asked him what his secret was, he simply said, " I run every day, I do 3 courses of the mini sea shore (for the ignorant, each round of this course is about 2.5 km). So that's it, he ran 7.5 km a day, every day and went off to finish a FM in under 4: 30. The other day I saw him on Kharghar Hill, stronger runners were huffing and puffing when Dr Ramani simply kept running past them, every time. he ran as fast up hill as many of them did downhill. And he is older than every one of those he was beating hollow. His T shirt was soaked in sweat, he wore no dri fit. the day was hot, he wore no cap. Others were fiddling with their Garmin to determine elevation, he did not even wear a watch. And while others were debating the utility of Vibrams, Dr Ramani ran in what looked like all purpose shoes that were made before Nike had you buying running shoes.

Finally there is Mumtaz. MQ I call him, his motion quotient is very high. He wore a watch that Sunday when he ran 100 km as he did not want to fall short. Trouble is the watch that he had borrowed from Mani found the responsibility of keeping his statistics too daunting and gave up. MQ ran for 17 hours to cover a distance of 100 km and at the end of it all, looked as fresh as a person about to set out on a run. Ditto was the look on the face of Apurba Das. That's what happens when you enjoy running, I guess. That's what happens when the fun is more important than the competitive spirit, I guess. This was the second time I was seeing Apurba do a 100 km, he tells me that he has run that distance 4 times, he makes it happen like it is some walk in the park. I was driving to help the runners but by the time I would finish serving the the runners and head to the next stop a km away, Hari and Apurba would be in sight. Unmindful of the heat and the lack of any tree cover on Godbunder road, they were flying and this was at the 80 k mark.

Meanwhile, MQ was having fun at Mani's expense, keeping his wit in that heat, knowing that he had some more distance to cover. He is a totally unassuming runner, not at all flashy, immensely popular, ready to pace the slowest of runners. As we turned into the western Express highway, his stops got fewer, his strides more rapid, his pace near frenetic. It was a sight to behold. A man possessed.

Ordinary people doing extra ordinary things.

Salaam.

In the interest of full disclosure I must disclose that I wear a Garmin and a heart rate monitor. I rotate my shoes and I wear drifit. I wear a cap and sometime a hydration belt too. But I have an excuse. As I keep saying to myself, "If you can't be a runner, atleast look like one."

The next PM: Not a pipe dream

(posted on my Facebook page on August 29, 2013)

I was on the phone with a very senior politician last night and what he told me left me dazed. I don't think this will happen, but i can tell you that stranger things have been known to happen.

Between the two of us, the politician and I, we were going through alternate scenarios. Modi and BJP will sweep North India, he said, giving the BJP something close to 180 seats. Even then it will be difficult for Modi to form the government, he said.

The Congress will not get much more than 120, he said, ruling out a Congress led government. It will be hugely unstable, he said.

Does this not mean the day will belong to the third front, I asked him. Sure, he said, but who will be the PM that will be acceptable to all, he went on to ask.

As he rightly said, no formation will be stable unless either the Congress or the BJP support it. Also, if the biggest party turns out to be SP, Mulayam would want to be PM, the only other person he would consider supporting is Sharad Pawar. The other two big parties could be AIADMK and Trinamool, but neither has a PM aspirant of their own (though Amma is said to harbour such thoughts from time to time) or one would be willing to support without reservation. in any case, the AIADMK will throw its weight behind Modi.

Thus, if the largest party in the group has fewer than 40 members, the President will have a tough time determining just who could provide a stable governement. It is easy to say that there would be a floor test but the President can only invite someone when he is satisfied that the person can sail through a floor test. He will ask for letters of support from the various parties.

The whole thing will hinge on who would be acceptable as PM, who can get the letters. It cannot be a Congressman or a BJP person, it has to be someone who is senior and acceptable. Sharad Pawar, I offered. But Sharad Pawar will at best have only 10 from his own party and if he fights the election in a pre poll alliance with the Congress, that could rule him out.

By now, I was getting impatient. Who, who, i asked.

How about PM?
Yes, who will be the PM?
PM.
Yes PM, but who.
Don't you get it, he said, further trying my patience, which had by now worn thin. PM.

Suddenly it hit me.
Who else but PM. He is as senior as senior can be, he has friends cutting across party lines. He has for long harboured the ambition to be PM.
But could he, wont it be a come down for him, I asked. He would have to resign from his present position. Is there no conflict of interest especially if he has to be the judge of who will be in a position to provide a stable government and he picks himself?
He will do it in the interest of the country. Instability or stable government, that is how the choice will be presented.
So, PM for PM.
I wonder.

Why India’s poor need a vibrant stock market

The poor have no stake in the stock market, right? Wrong.
On the contrary, the poor have a greater stake in the stock market than rich investors do. Prakash Karat and his ilk who have appropriated for themselves the position of spokespersons of the poor need to understand this.
There are several ways in which this story plays itself out, but the one line I wish to explore for now is inflation.
Allow me to step back a little and take you to this morning’s newspaper headlines. Petrol prices are up by over Rs 7 depending on where you live. Comrade Raja of the Communist Party of India would have you know that this will have a cascading effect on prices and will hurt the poor. No kidding.
This Comrade like other comrades who are wont to prefer ideology to facts, do not even have a rudimentary understanding of market economics or a grasp of the facts. If he had bothered to check the facts, he would have known that we have adequate stocks of rice and pulses, which if used properly, need not make this increase hugely painful for the poor. If the Comrade had an understanding of market economics, he would have figured out that his solution of not raising prices is not just simplistic and naive but suicidal in the short, medium and long run. Unburdened by the pressures of having ever had to rule, hence untormented by the burden of policy making, the good Comrade knows only to oppose which he does, like his other brethren whose propensity to paint the world red has left the finances of many countries swathed in similar colours, only difference being in the shade of red.
But why did they have to raise fuel prices? Because the oil bill shot through the roof. Today’s DNA tells me that every rupee decline against the dollar adds Rs 8000 crore to the oil bill.
Why did the oil bill go through the roof? Because the dollar surged ahead, not persuaded by the assurances of the government.
Why did the dollar surge ahead? Because there are many more foreign investors wanting to get their investments out than those wanting in.
Why do they want out? They want out because they do not see the Indian policy environment with all of its flip flops as being a stable one to be invested in. So they are buying dollars.
The timing of all this could not be worse. As a country, we are running an unacceptably high current account deficit. The result of this is that we are dipping into our foreign exchange reserves to finance our consumption. I won’t bore you with the precise numbers but suffice to say that the numbers are alarming as they are showing no signs of correcting. Historically, remittances from Indian resident overseas has helped bridge the gap but with the world in turmoil that too has come down. So we have to dip into our reserves to finance our purchase of day to day needs such as oil and so on. At the same time, if we have to use the forex reserves to meet the burgeoning demand for dollars from foreigners who want to take their money out, we have a problem on our hands. There is simply not enough dollars in our reserve kitty to defend in any meaningful way the rupee, hence a sliding rupee is inevitable.
So, when the stock market tanks, and foreigners take money faster than it comes in, as the dollar rises and oil bill shoots up, a petrol price hike becomes necessary. When petrol price increases and other fuel prices follow, the cost of inputs goes up, the cost of moving goods goes up, inflationary conditions sets in.
The poor and those working on daily wages are the worst affected by inflation. They don’t enjoy the benefit of inflation indexing or what the salaried class knows as DA or Dearness Allowance which corrects their wages automatically for inflation.
When the rich lose money in the stock markets, their wealth erodes and that’s that. But when foreign capital takes flight, as the dollar strengthens and inflation raises its ugly head, the poor have a tough time just living, one meal at a time.
My friend Ashish who now heads the BSE told me that as much as 2 % of our growth rides on the back of foreign capital. I have also seen back of the envelope calculations which establish a clear correlation between economic growth and job creation.
So when the stock market behaves as it has been doing, the poor really get a raw deal. It is high time their champions woke up to this.

Why is Mamata Banerjee playing games with Pranab babu?

More than two months ago, I wrote that Pranab Mukherjee will be India’s next President. I continue to stand by that statement. What I will do is to try and provide a perspective on what is happening and why.

Pranab babu wants to be President of India. Unless he can become the Prime Minister. In which case, he will give up his Presidential ambitions to move into 7 RCR. Mamata knows this and the game plan is to confuse the hell out of everyone by coming up with these 3 names for President.

Mamata does not like Pranab babu, not in the least bit. She sees him as a CPIM stooge. His previous elections to the Rajya Sabha happened because of help from the CPIM. I know of one occasion when Dhirubhai Ambani called Jyoti babu to get Pranab babu the surplus votes that the Left front had after getting their own nominees elected.

Grateful that he was to the Left for their support through the years, Pranab babu did the CPIM a great service by keeping Mamata out of an alliance with the Congress for as long as he could. The left has been scared only of Mamata but they also knew that so long as Mamata was with the BJP, they had nothing to worry about. Whenever a disenchanted Mamata sent feelers to the Congress, she would be rebuffed at the prompting of Pranab babu who made her leaving the BJP a condition precedent to any talks of cooperation. The BJP gaver her a foothold at the national level and she knew that she would be weakened in her negotiations with the Congress if she dropped the BJP first. Pranab babu exploited this to the hilt and used this to get the High Command to keep Mamata at arms length and making it clear to her that she should dissociate herself from the BJP.

When Karat pulled the rug from under the Congress’ feet, Pranab babu’s efforts to keep Mamata at bay came a cropper. Pranab babu’s adversaries in the Bengal Congress managed to get the ears of 10 Janpath, it also helped that Mamata had by then had started distancing herself from the BJP. An alliance was struck and the CPIM was decimated, the Left buried.

Mamata holds Pranab babu personally responsible for allowing the Left one term more than what she though they would get. She used to call the Congress, the B team of the CPIM and Pranab Babu its captain.

Her pleasure comes from causing Pranab babu pain. She knows that she cannot stop his becoming the President. But she knows that he wants to be PM. But having learned his lesson from his previous blunders when he flaunted his ambition, he will not reveal his cards this time around. He wants to be president, but he wants to be PM even more. Of course he is tired and wants to ride away into the sunset which is what moving to Rashtrapati Bhavan would be about. But if there is even a remote chance of becoming PM, he would not want to give that up. Over the last year, he has been the target of barbs by Chidambaram for which he blames the PM, he is livid about that. So what if he says he is tired and wants some R & R. Narasimha Rao had retired from politics when the prospect of occupying the PM’s chair allowed him to stage a miraculous recovery never recorded before in the annals of medical science.

Mamata knows this and is playing with him. If she can convince him to believe that Manmohan Singh is an acceptable alternative and if she can rally other parties around Singh, not to mention congressmen who have begun to view Singh as a liability, she would have won the battle. This morning’s papers have industry leaders talking about the missing leader at PMO. All of this works to Mamata’s advantage. But Sonia Gandhi does not trust Pranab babu and that is a real problem. She cannot allow him to be PM but she also knows that she cannot do without him in the government. It is a real quandary she is in. At the same time, she cannot also ignore the cries from her own party for a leadership change.

Can the Congress not show Mamata the middle finger and get its way. It can. But with less than 2 years to Lok Sabha elections, the Congress can ill afford to antagonise its allies. The formation of a thrd front will hurt the Congress the most and tit would be stupid for them to drive their own allies away to join a new formation. The BJP will gain. So, the need for consultations and the need to look like they are trying to arrive at a consensus.

In the meanwhile, Pranab babu may have made Mamata’s position more rigid by reaching out to Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. People who think Mamata will be under pressure to support Pranab babu as he is a Bengali are wrong because the argument will be turned around by Mamata who will shout that he is of no help to Bengal when he is loath to sanction the rescue package she is asking for. That argument will not work.

Where does all this leave Pranab babu? He must know how it felt for Trishanku, i guess.

In defence of Mamata Banerjee

I am fond of Mamata Banerjee.

I feel that she is misunderstood. If one were to see her actions, there is one thread that runs through it all, a pathological hatred for the Communist parties and everything communist. If you understand this, you understand everything else about her, you begin to develop an appreciation for her actions, for her utterances, for the way she reacts.

Her moving into the seat of power must be seen in the same light as you and I moving into a termite infested house. The first thing you would do is to call pest control to exterminate the termites, isn’t that so? After the pest control chaps have left the house and you spot termites again, would you not go ballistic? You would start looking for termites everywhere, you would look for early warning signals, you will err only on the side of panic. If someone tells you that the beautiful mango tree is the problem, you will order it to be felled immediately. If yet another person told you that the termites have taken over one side of your house, you will order that side demolished. You will Google everything about termites and if there is the slightest indication that they could stage a comeback, you will stop at nothing, simply nothing.

To Mamata, the communists are worse than termites. Over the 3 decades they have been in power, they have taken over everything. They sought to control a great deal through the education system. In the early 1990s, teachers’ salaries became part of the state budget, with a crippling effect on state finances. The Communists believed that if you had the teachers on your side, you could control the people. Not only were the teachers in the advantageous position of filling the minds of kids up with communist propaganda, it was also useful to keep them happy as it is they who conducted elections. No surprise then that Mamata’s first move is to purge the education system casino en ligne francais legal of anybody with a fondness for communist ideology. She sees everything in black and white: either you are against the Communists or you are for her. If you are for her, you will cut her some slack. If you are for the Communists you will attack her, make fun of her, slight her at every opportunity. She did not set the rule on this one, the CPIM did.

The argument she makes is simple enough: You allowed the Communists  so much latitude, you let them get away with even daring to take Tagore off the shelves, you let Jatin Chakravarty impose his concept of Sanskriti, banning everything (including, or should I say especially, Usha Uthup) else as apasanskriti, you let Subash Chakravarty and his goons run amuck at election time, you let the communists retain their stranglehold through what came to be known as scientific rigging of elections, and now you have elected me, don’t forget that it is your battles I am fighting. What probably irritates her to no end is that the media would not have dared to question Jyoti Basu thus or even his successor, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya. She realizes that she is paying the price of being a Ma Maati Manush Chief Minister. She is accessible and therefore leaves herself open to ridicule. Not for her the idea of sitting on a lofty perch, far removed from the people she represents.

People ridicule her for her scatter brained ideas. I wonder how many people remember that the CPIM once tried to set up a power plant for which they tried to raise funding through blood donation camps. I don’t recall too many people making fun of Jyoti babu at that time, the media was too scared to raise the slightest voice of protest.

If you want tonknow how the Communists work, read what Kerala CPIM leader M M Mani said recently. According to him the party would not hesitate to kill to achieve its ends. In Kerela, there was atleast the Church to provide a balance and keep the Commuinists on their toes. Yet they behaved as Mani says they did. in Bengal, they had no opposition of any kind. How do you think they dealt with opposition?

I am not for a moment extolling the greatness of Mamata, I am the first to accept she has not shown too much evidence of that. She has not done too many great things that I can talk about.  All that I am simply suggesting is that if you kept quiet during the purge by the CPIM, why don’t you extend the same courtesies to her? She has been through hell to get here. She deserves your sympathy. Give her a break.

Please.