The alarm on my cell phone rang. With sleepy eyes I searched for it on my side table, silenced it and buried my head in the pillow. A voice in my head kept saying repeatedly 'Wake up lazy bones, it is time to get some exercise'. Reminded me of the time long ago when my teen aged elder brother used to pester me incessantly day after day at the ungodly hour of 4 am to wake up, completely undeterred by my outraged protests. Just because he thought that he was at his productive best- study wise- in the wee hours of the morning and he hated to study alone and took my companionship on his study table for granted. God, what tortures elder brothers are capable of....
I dragged myself away from the bed to get ready for the morning walk. It had to be a solo walk today unlike regular days when I have my husband's company. He was away on a work related tour for a couple of weeks and I was on my own for this period. I missed him...and my daughter too who used to accompany me on my evening walks. She has got married and gone abroad to chart the course of her own independent life. I forced the gloomy thoughts from my mind and applied it to more practical things- like getting into my walking dress and putting on my shoes.
Once I was out of the building which houses my flat, I felt the cool breeze in my face and instantly my mood picked up. I greeted a couple of other morning walkers of the neighbourhood and reached a bridge( nothing grandiose, just a little bridge over a nullah) which overlooks a park nearby. It is a small park with a 250 meter oval walking track inside it. It is commonly called a 'Nana- Nani park' as it is basically meant for senior citizens and does not have any swings or slides for kids' amusement. How silly...the people in charge do not seem to realize that they are not only depriving the children of an entertainment opportunity, they are also depriving the senior citizens of the simple pleasure of watching boisterous youngsters play.
I glanced at the walking track of the Nana-Nani park which was nearly choc-a-block with walkers, all moving at more or less the same speed. From the bridge, because of all the people moving on it, the oval track looked like a giant wheel of a machine moving in clockwise direction. I watched the moving of wheel fascinated for a few moments before proceeding to the walking track where I prefer to take my daily constitutional.
This is actually a twin track with two half- kilometer tracks running parallelly about ten feet apart. You go up on one track, cross over to the other one and return the length of the other track to complete a one-kilometere round. Parallel to the cobbled walking tracks run two similar jogging tracks of soft earth. Jogging track is populated by youngsters mostly, in their jogging attire and sneakers, listening to music through their earphones and generally oblivious to the surrounding population. People walking briskly on the cobbled track are generally in pairs or groups and they exchange news or talk on some topic or the other. The ones having an animated discussion have, without a doubt, politics and politicians as their topic. This is the irony of the Indian middle class. We may not take the trouble to stand in a queue outside a polling booth to vote, but where a political discussion is concerned, we are at our vociferous best.
I took a cursory glance at the youngsters on the jogging track taking their daily exercise. Suddenly my heart missed a beat. My eyes were glued to the back of a petite young girl running ahead in a bright t shirt looking just like my daughter. I kept looking at her till she went round the bend and came towards me on the parallel track. Suddenly, I missed my daughter. I missed having her company for my evening walks, I missed seeing her run on the jogging track, I missed seeing her smile and wave every time she crossed me on the jogging track. I was reminded that she has been away from me for the longest time in her life ever since she was born- nearly ten months. A pall of sadness descended on my heart and moistened my eyes. However, before I got too depressed, a chance greeting of an acquaintance brought me back to the present. I greeted her back with a smile and walked on.
The Sun had climbed the buildings now on its upwards journey. I head back towards my house, absently taking in the early morning sights of our locality. On the pavement, the silver haired old gentleman who feeds the stray dogs every morning was surrounded by and jumped on by a bunch of them, demonstrating their affection and they all made a pretty picture together.
I bought a packet of buttermilk from the milk seller sitting on the pavement outside our colony, picked up the newspaper stuck in the bolt of the front door of my house, and glancing at its headlines entered my house, certain that my walk, lonely though it was, had been a perfect start of my otherwise monotonous day .
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