If I only had I known a morning walk can give a lot of material to write I would have started it long time back. It is just an hour in a lonely stretch of 250 meters doing laps after laps. If this can give add so much humor to life, I will be soon moving to beach walks and enhance the experience multifold.
Firstly, we think walking is an exercise that will keep you healthy and thus may let you live longer. You are wrong. It is the shortest way to end one’s life. Whoever said that dogs are man’s best friend is world’s worst liar. These animals don’t subscribe to your idea of living longer. They dream of a world where there no people and they are the dominant species. To me it appears they all meet the previous evening in a board room to strategize and plot the downfall of Homo sapiens. They then execute it to perfection. Teamwork, my God we should learn from them. They form a pack and threaten anything that walks on two legs. Once or twice I think I saw them having a villainous smirk on their faces.
If you still don’t buy my theory of the perils involved in walking, hear this out. The dogs are partial to killing men it appears. Because they have formed a secret pact with girls in their twenties! These girls are natural born killers. They don’t meet or scheme. They simply enroll in a driving class. Take a battered car and try to mow you down. You can sense it 200 meters far. Yet you ought to be lucky to survive. Because rationally you think you should move out of the way of a speeding car. That’s where you are wrong. You presume the car will stay in the same direction and miss you. Well that could be true if the intent is driving. When it is killing they take just only your direction. Chase you in all direction with the hungry pack of dogs awaiting you licking their lips.
If that day you are lucky to survive, then you are treated to various sights. The end of my walking stretch has a graveyard. I am 100% certain that every morning atleast 4 of them get out of their graves and start walking. They should easily be 236 years old. And later drop dead again. The only thing that scares them off is women in their 50 are wearing camoflauge print ear muffs at 25 degrees. Some of these women are accompanied by their husbands who are non-stop chatters. And I realized on the 3rd day that the muffs serve a different purpose. And then there is this man who wears a neatly pressed shorts and T shirt & permanently has a growl in his face. Somehow I get a feeling he works in Finance. Don’t ask me why. He has that look, suspecting eyes with a serious mission of catching fraudsters. He has this permanent wedge in his forehead that comes out of wearing a Sree Soornam for 40 years. But he talks about prawns in his phone.
And then there are 2 women with their dogs (no these ones don’t belong to the pack). One of these women is walked by the dog. And another guy with a grotesque nose has some issues in identifying various attires. He mixes up bras and T shirts. Mostly he wears bra for running. And one girl is walking because she wants to have a peaceful phone conversation. She is always on the phone speaking. Whoever in the other end is a poor soul who wakes up at 5 am to listen to this endless rambling! And there are some old couple who come with a plastic bag hunting for wild flowers not minding the other risks, they simply dive into the bush and come up with a triumphant look and a tiny flower in their hand. One small boy is coerced to walk I am sure. He has this forlorn look in his face, carries a skipping rope which he is going to soon use to strangle his tormentor. And walking styles, what do I even say about it. I am certain one woman there is surely rehearsing for the Republic Day Parade.
Well, I think I should be providing entertainment to them too I guess. Because I am the thinnest guy in that circuit. And they should be wondering whether I am carried by air or I am really walking. Or maybe they think I could be one amongst those 4 grave-walkers. Let me soon get to the beach.
