18th Jan 2009. I completed my first half marathon (21.097km). Wow! And to think that about 15 months back, I was struggling to run 2km without stopping for breath. The max I had ever run before that was with my close friend Dr Mihir Munshi when we were in college – that was around 3km I think!

The Mumbai Marathon is a phenomenal event. In a country not known for its sporting and adventure culture, the Mumbai Marathon puts India on the international sporting map quite admirably.

Anyway, back to my run, it wasn’t easy to be sure. I was going quite well till around the 15-16km mark, and was hoping to clock between 2:20 to 2:25. However, my calves started cramping really bad and no amount of hydration, salts or stretching would help. So i pretty much had to walk-jog the remaining 5-odd km and limp across the finish line in what I believe was a timing of 2:28 (official timing TBA).

Note: Just to put things in perspective, the winners do the distance in around 1:08 or something, so even 2:20 is no where near a “good” time. But not trying to push my timing was important for me to be able to do the distance.

So I’m a bit disappointed with my timing, I know I can do better. But am glad I managed to finish and definitely need to work on those cramps. Perhaps my running technique needs work.

But anyone reading this thinking “wow, 21km sounds way more than I can run”, let me tell you, I used to be in awe of my friends who ran the half marathon. But it is MUCH easier than you think. You just have to go easy, not try and cover too much too fast. I started with the treadmill, doing 2, 3 then around 4km before I hit the road. From 4, I went to 6km over a month or so, and the I was doing 8-9. The real breakthrough happened when I jumped from 12 to 15km one day and I felt absolutely fine. That was the day I really started feeling confident I could do 21. My journey from 4km to 15km took a good 6 months or so. Because I was clear I was only racing against myself.

Running in a fantastic group helped too. It allows you to explore your limits and push your boundaries. One is unlikely to push oneself if running on one’s own.

So make sure you don’t miss the next one. Registrations start around June/July every year and fill up pretty fast, so keep checking http://scmm.indiatimes.com

Injoy!

Like most other Bombayites (don’t find the need to be politically correct and say Mumbaikars!) I feel sad, angry, confused, helpless, lucky, grateful….. But somewhere, I also feel happy to find that the “this is the last straw” sentiment seems to echo really loudly in the city. Not surprised, for its been a long time coming, but happy.

Of course, it is not enough to say enough – like Madame Shobha De spouting her worthless 2 cents and empty rhetoric on all TV channels, even going to the extent of  distancing herself from other “celebrities” who are expressing themselves. I mean all she could say was enough is enough, we must do something, heads must roll, blah blah, without one single, concrete suggestion. And yet she claimed to be different from other celebrities!! This “enough” sentiment must NOT be allowed to lose momentum – bringing about even an iota of change is the best respect we can pay to the lives lost.

Which brings me to my first point of confusion about this issue. Everyone’s talking about a failure of leadership, and that we need to use our power of the ballot to boot the inefficient out. The million dollar question is, who do you vote in? Sure enough at the next election, I’m going to be standing at the booth faced with the same Congress, NCP, BJP, Shiv Sena, SP, BSP….and some unheard of independents. There may be the odd constituency where a candidate, perhaps even from one of the above parties, may have an impeccable reputation. But for the most part, THERE IS NO CHOICE. So what power of the ballot are we really talking about?

The fact is not all of us have the gumption to take up the challenge of any of these leadership positions. And I think its childish to argue that if one feels so strongly about this, why does one not take up the challenge of running for office. IMHO, taking up political service, like being involved in an NGO, for instance, is NOT like a regular job. Having strong administration and leadership abilities is a necessary but NOT a sufficient condition. It MUST have an altruistic motive above all else, and hence requires spiritual courage at some level – if you really intend to do it right.

However, what we CAN do, is to make the ones who do accountable, and not get away with their ulterior motive of joining politics. And if that cannot be done by exercising choice of candidate, it must be done by forcing accountability – through civil rights methods, if need be – non-cooperation, dharnas, judicial channels…. Lets face it, the only power the citizens have is financial, and that of numbers. I feel it is high time some of our industry leaders, who are funding many of these political parties in any case, either directly – through donations, etc, or indirectly through the taxes they pay, now demand what is due to them and the citizens. Not only do they have the financial muscle, but they are doubtless extremely enterprising. I have always believed that whatever progress India makes is because of private enterprise and IN SPITE of the government!

And if sufficiently large mass movements can be gathered to demand such accountability, rather than to demand reservation for sons of the soil, we should be able to force accountability from the very people we feel we need to vote out. I mean why the hell should Shivraj Patil be sacked, and waste all the public money that has been spent in electing him and keeping him in office for the last 4 years to do a job he has not done? He should be rather FORCED to do his job – don’t let him get away scot free. Take away his security, his perks, give him targets to achieve. And should it be necessary to finally sack a leader, it should automatically disqualify him/her from EVER standing for office again. Failure in public office should be made unacceptable and (I don’t think this may be feasible, but if its), a criminal offence punishable by law. 

And here’s yet another sample – our State Home Minister RR Patil says “it could have been worse. 5000 could have died..”!! What the hell is his point? That we should be glad it was only 300? I’d like to see Mr Patil say that face to face to Mr Kang (GM of the Taj), to Major Unnikrishnan’s parents, or to any of the relatives of the victims. Shouldn’t he, as our leader, our “karta” feel that ONE is bad enough? Again IMHO, the damage is done – it is as bad at 300 as i would have been at 5000!

And that’s a fact. With all due respect to the courage of the and the job done by the security forces, the terrorists have managed to achieve their objective. They have come into the city with a large cache of arms undetected, managed to murder several people, cause mayhem, severely damage the icons Bombay holds so dear, and hold out against our best forces for THREE days – all with what – 6 months of training and first time at the job? We MUST believe that our security forces have done the best they could under the circumstances. Doubting their efficiency or efficacy in the operation would insult their effort and sacrifices of the cops and commandos who lost their lives. All I’m saying is that despite that, the terrorists have managed to do what they came to do.

Another sentiment I am glad is being echoed in Bombay is getting beyond this “spirit of Bombay” business – I mean, what choice do you have after an event has happened? Sit at home and never cross the road again? If I don’t go to work, who pays the exorbitant rent for that kholi, the EMI for my car, my son’s school fees, or the hafta for my pan-bidi shop??? Is it really spirit or necessity? Not only politicians, but I was dismayed to see even corporates trying to cash in on this “spirit of Mumbai” bullshit. Today (Sunday)’s DNA carries an ad on the masthead from KURL-ON saying “The Spirit of Mumbai cannot be shattered by bullets – Kurl-On”.

Hello???????? I’m surprised a paper like DNA carried an ad like this! 

And then this morning, when I went for my run at Marine Drive, the media OB vans were still out there trying to interview some of us to “capture this spirit of Mumbai”. The spirit is now beginning to turn evil and haunt us!!

Finally, there is only hope – that this tragic event will bring about the change that is long overdue. A change that will only happen if we ASK for it, AND are prepared to work towards it. I’m perhaps not capable of leading that change, but am happy to put my hand up as a follower to do what is in my capacity.

As for the ones who lost their innocent lives in this massacre, we need to believe what my friend recently said when he lost a family member – that they are in better hands!

At long last, I started taking lessons in Hindustani Classical (vocal) music today. Shri Shripati Hegde, who tutored under Pt. C R Vyas is my Guru. The first day was great, and almost felt too slow – wanted to learn so much, ask so many questions.

Actually, I’ve been in a dilemma as to whether I should take advanced lessons in Guitar to progress from my (low) current level, or take singing lessons. Finally decided I’d rather do the latter cos not only do I feel more comfortable singing, but also wanted to learn about Indian Classical music.

I only hope between work, family and all the other activities I have taken up, I can keep this going.

Read yesterday that Salma Hayek has called off her wedding to Francois-Henri Pinault.

This is my chance…..

I’ve started doing some middle-distance running since the last 6-odd months and some of my co-runners used to keep talking about how wonderful it is to run in the rains. Well, today I got my chance to sample that experience, and have to agree completely with my friends. Sure, most of us have enjoyed getting drenched in the rain some time or the other, but somehow, running (and I would imagine any competitive activity) in the rain was different. We all know how much more fun it is to play football in rain. 

It was cooler for starters. You feel less de-hydrated. And at the end, I think its mostly because we enjoy getting wet anyway.

Maybe I enjoyed it more simply because its otherwise quite boring to run! 

Click image to expand.

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of India in the Som Mittal case (read DNA report here) is quite shocking. While I am not debating the responsibility of a company in ensuring the safety and well-being of its employees, this verdict is taking it too far. Sure, if there has been gross negligence or even complicity on the part of the organisation, there is no question about this verdict. However, with all due respect to the tragedy encountered by Pratibha Srikanta Murthy and her near and dear ones, accidents do happen despite one’s best efforts and intents. And as long as the best efforts and intents were there, I don’t know how a CEO can be liable for prosecution for negligence if anything untoward at all happens to them may be. At worst, this ruling could be open to misuse effectively absolving everyone else involved of the responsibility, most of all the victim himself/herself.

Sure, we must learn from these accidents. Make the norms more stringent for corporations in ensuring their employees’ security and well-being so that accidents such as these are avoided in future. More importantly, pass the highest possible penalty to the main culprit – the prepetrator of the crime.

Otherwise, prosecute Jawaharlal Nehru for the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi too!  Or the CEO of NASA/US Government for the death of Kalpana Chawla and her colleagues.

Is there no respite whatsover from the call drops and other network issues mobile subscribers in Mumbai have to endure everyday? We may boast the fastest growing mobile subscriber base in the world, but I can bet we probably have the worst network in the world too.

I have been a Vodafone subscriber since around 1997 (from Max Touch days) and in the last 3-4 years, I don’t think I have made a single call over 2 minutes without the call dropping at least once. This is if you get through in the first place. Often, when making a call, you either get a network busy message, or it takes bloody long to connect.

I have observed that the following are particularly bad blind spots in Mumbai and my calls in this area ALWAYS drop:

• Marine Drive (particularly near the flyover)
• Peddar Road (near Villa Theresa school)
• Tulsi Pipe Road (on both new flyovers)

And this is across different mobile phones (so it isn’t my phone). I had made a complaint to Hutch in 2005 but nothing happened.

Mr. Sarin, forget ringtones, alerts, 1Re calls, or even 3G. Can we PLEASE make a simple voice call like we are used to with good old MTNL since 1970s – without calls dropping?

Came across this invaluable guide to eating out in Mumbai, compiled for Lehman Bros in true consultant style. I suspect some of the material is outdated, but you’re sure to find something of interest in 555 pages!!

Donwload it here: Eating Out in Mumbai

Bon Apetit!

My first ever new year resolution was to start taking Guitar/Singing lessons and commence Yoga. Almost at the end of Jan and I haven’t really made much progress on either. However, fair amount of effort has been put into a completely unplanned (and indulgent) exercise – figuring out how I can switch to a Mac and what kind of potential issues I could face. As some of those who know me would vouch, dealing with these kind of tech and gadget challenges is quite a high for me.

Anyway, to start with, Why switch to a Mac? you might ask. Well, simple answer, sex appeal. God (and wife) knows I need some.

So have spent some time on Google and its results, chewing the brains of mac dealers in Mumbai, experimenting with a borrowed ibook etc. And I have to say, its really not as easy as Apple makes it sound.

My impression so far is while you can pretty much do everything on a Mac that you can on Windows, you can only do so at the basic level. If you are an advanced user, and use some of the less common features and services of Windows and its software, its difficult to let go. Compatability is not that much of an issue, you just have to work harder and may have to opt for workarounds. Some of my key obstacles:

1. I work in an office which runs a Windows  network with Active Directory and the Mac needs to join the domain, access its services, etc. While joining a Windows is no longer an issue, will I be able to access services like firewalls, proxies, play administrator, and manage things like security permissions etc from my client?

2. I use Outlook 2003. While Entourage provides all the basic functionality of Outlook, at first glance it does not seem to be as full featured as Outlook – the address card does not seem to hold as many fields, not sure how easy it is to create a distribution list, manage multiple email accounts and sending mails with chosen account etc.

3. One of the biggest issues is likely to be 3rd party applications – like sync for my Sony Ericsson with Outlook. Again, iSync etc will allow basic syncing of contacts, calendars and mails, how accurate and reliable will the syncing be – will it sync all fields, alarms, categories, notes etc? What about using my phone as a modem via Bluetooth?

4. And then of course there are the little utilities that are available for windows like password managers that sync with my phone – not sure how easily I will get that for a Mac.

All in all, I guess my problem is that I’m just too comfortable with Windows. Its like a marriage – you know there are problems, and the other women really looks appealing, but you’re just too cosy in the current familiarity.

And the final obstacle – for all the praise that Mac gets for being far easier to use than windows, I still haven’t found that one single feature about the Mac yet that makes a really strong argument to support that claim.  But I’m still waiting and haven’t given up yet…