Run With Me

"If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it."

Immanuel Hermass von Fichte, German philosopher (1786 - 1879)

This is a picture post. Go make pour yourself a drink or take a leak or something while it loads.
If you're on a 56k modem, you have enough time to go have dinner or even take a dump first.

At the start of End Point's jogging track.

Since the first morning I was back in Manipal, I've picked up the healthy (and very uncharacteristic-of-me-I-know-stop-giving-me-flak) habit of jogging regularly¹ from my house to the end of End Point daily at 6.30 am, before I hop on to the drudgeries of labs and lectures.

I see the signboard in the picture above midway through my route everyday. I thought the person who wrote that to be rather politically incorrect. How can he/she assume that my creator isn't a woman? Don't they know that the entire Chinese race is a plasticine project of Nüwa, the Semi-serpent Goddess? Sheesh~

End Point. Please click to enlarge.

The town of Manipal was built on a table-like hill. End Point, to put it in the simplest terms, is a stretch of road that runs along one edge of that table. If you walk off the asphalt and trudge a little way to the left (in reference to the picture above), you'll come to a rather steep slope that rolls a long way down to the endless expanse of the Indian plains below. On a good cloudless day - which is practically everyday before monsoon - you can even see in the far horizon where the flat sea-line gives way to heaven.

C'mon, let's run along for a bit.

Yellow-flowering tree.

In an effort to make the place look a lot less barren, the powers that be (whoever they may be) have planted a series of pretty looking trees along the way. A small truck carrying "recycled water" as its cargo would make its rounds in the evening to make sure that the shrubberies would thrive on the parched red earth.

The best time to visit End Point would be on one of those rare sunny days during the monsoon deluge. It's like one of those National Geographic specials where the desert would sprout into a multi-coloured paradise after a rainstorm. Breath-taking, I kid you not.

A dead tree.

Being on rather hilly terrain, End Point enjoys a constant, cooling strong breeze from the west, where the Indian Ocean lies. In fact, the wind is so constant that you'll notice some of the older trees here would incline eastward, being battered so persistently from the other side.

The end point of End Point.

At the end of the track, you'll come to this loop when you can make a U-turn and choo-choo all the way back to town. Or, if you're the adventurous sort *coughmecough*, you can go on running for a bit more off-road;

The end point of End Point from Google Earth.

See the dirt-track leading from the loop? From the end of that dirt-track, you can see this;

Swarna River. Feel free to click on it and blow it up.

Forgive my noob photography skills. This picture does not do the view the least bit justice at all. When you're truly standing there in person, you'll be overwhelmed by just how big the Indian subcontinent is. In the face of God's² sprawling ant-farm, I feel small, microscopic - and all my aches and troubles are even smaller. Breathing in deeply, it wouldn't surprise me if I dissolve in thin air right there and then by doing just that.

My route.

The signboard in the first picture is planted somewhere right in the middle of the red line. Actually getting to the start of End Point already takes half my full run.

1. My house in Acharya Compound.
2. The loop at the end point of End Point.
3. Scenic vantage point of Swarna River.
4. Swarna River.

Of course, then I would have to run back;

Long way home.

See the little black arrow? That's where the town is - so far that it's almost a blur. Standing there, I almost felt as if I've left all the flotsams of my wreckage of a life behind. I just thought that it's too bad I can't have someone standing beside me with whom I can share this with.

Too bad indeed. So I'll just share this with you guys, my virtual jogging mates!

April buds.

Though End Point may look like a rather dry husk of a place at the moment, you can still find beauty if you know where to look. The trick is to recognise beauty when you see it; like this bouquet of yet-unopened purple flowers for instance.

And if you're particularly good at recognising beauty, you might even see this;

Love at its simplest.

Every morning at the first light of dawn, this old man whose hair is white and few, would stroll along End Point with his wife who is bent with age. The pair would walk slowly, treading each and every familiar step with care with her hand clasped in his. They must have been married for a great score of years and have walked together on countless mornings - yet, looking at both of them, I can almost swear that this morning is their first.

Everyday is the first day.

Everyday is the first day of the rest of their lives.

Damn, I feel like crying every time I see them.

The other side of the same signboard.

One day, I'm going to come here with a permanent marker and change 'Time' to 'Life'.

What have you done or seen today?

Still breathing,
k0k s3n w4i

¹ Or as regular as I can help it.
² The Almighty and I have a strange relationship. He spends half his time ignoring me while I spend my half pretending that he's as real as Santa Claus (there, there, don't cry kids). Just sometimes, I see something so moving that I could not stop myself from uttering "My God!" under my breath in awe.