Walking gives me some time for myself

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Proudly owned a pair of sneakers thinking that it would comfortably fit 'jogging' into my daily routine. It is the first of its kind I have ever bought.  I use my old formal shoes that are no longer presentable for office instead. I justified it to myself as it would be better to keep my carbon footprint a little less. Being a believer in recycling and reusing, among other things, I often use the reverse side of papers to take notes and prepare to-do-lists. Those papers would otherwise have gone straight to trash bin.


This might have been my first purchase of, but not my first time to actually use, sneakers. I used them for the first time 12 years ago, when I was doing my master's degree on the Calicut University campus. Mohammed Rafeequ, fondly called as Rafi, from Laksha Deep, was kind enough to put me up in his room until got one of my own. I appropriated his sneakers, with his permission and blessing, of course. As a matter of coincidence, I had some downtime yesterday and watched Children of Heaven by Majid Majidi for the third time after many years. It made me feel like we are being guided by a higher power which, of course, eludes our comprehension.

      Having always been an early bird, I used to go for a walk early in the morning. This afforded me some quality time to myself and also energized me. I would start from the men's hostel, where I was living at the time, and continue via Pareeksha Bhavan, botanical garden, and the amphitheater to the stadium near the ladies' hostel, and then return to the men's hostel via the Vellunnial temple premises. I encountered some guys, mostly during the week or two before sports days, clearly going way beyond doing a few rounds of jogging in the stadium ground. I never was quite that enthusiastic.

The hallowed halls of learning were shrouded in fog and looked eerie in the distance. Some pious girls from the ladies' hostel were usually making their way to the temple, drying their wet hair locks in the first rays of the sun as they did so. I observed that the number of templegoers always increased noticeably during the examination period. Sometimes I cut short my amble when I sighted packs of stray dogs, which our campus never failed to offer. (I had been afraid of dogs since my childhood.)

 Oh my pair of foot screams of pain. It has got blisters. I had to tie the lace a bit more tightly to keep big footed Rafi's large size sneakers from slipping off my foot. The story continues, but I will take my leave of you here. Let me continue on my memory treadmill barefoot - unblistered this time - and solo. Thank you for the pleasure of your company.

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