Jogging Hazards

Dear dedicated reader,

I write to you happy and full of food. The fast is over and I have enjoyed a delicious lunch of Indian achaar (pickle), roti, rice, and, courtesy of a package from my grandmother, Crystal light lemonade.

I had hoped to write to you of the exciting last two days of our fast, but to be honest, it was uneventful outside of constant headaches, stomach rumblings and our hunger driven proclivity for napping and watching movies in the air-conditioned computer lab. So I will write about another topic instead.

Recently, I have begun trying to go jogging in the very early morning.

We don’t get out much during the day; we live on the school property and the classrooms in which we teach are merely a one to two minute walk away from the door of our house. I have become a little antsy with the containment and decided the best cure would be some exercise.

At first, I thought that teaching the boys who stay in the hostel here to play ultimate Frisbee might be the answer. After Melissa and I had thrown the disc around conspicuously in the yard for a few minutes, a few boys timidly asked if they could join. They were quite taken with it, and so I explained to them, in an effort that took the breadth of my Hindi and their English, that there is game you can play if you have enough people in teams. They excitedly recruited their friends and they more or less watched and listened carefully as I explained the basic rules in a Hindi-English mix, replete with much miming.

The teams split up and went to their ends of the field. I was relieved; they must have understand some of what I had said. This was, however, the only part of what ensued that actually resembled Frisbee in anyway.

After throwing the Frisbee down the field, the boys on the other team failed to catch it, and so it ended up the on the ground. All 20 boys launched themselves in a kicking, biting, pushing pile of bodies towards the fallen Frisbee, ending up in a heap of bodies from which one boy escaped, hotly pursued, running down the field with the Frisbee tucked safely under his arm. He was soon tackled by another, much larger student, who pulled him to the ground and kicked the Frisbee away from him and into a teammates’ waiting hands. This boy was able to run fast enough to reach the goal line, and a wild dance of celebration was begun by this boy’s team, full of joyous whooping.

I looked helplessly at Melissa; how could I even begin to clarify?

So, ultimate was a bust (though recently the boys have caught the concept from watching me that you are supposed to throw) and the boys have tuition so often in the evenings that our opportunities for practice are rare. And thus, jogging.

Having previously taken a walk in the early morning in the village, I knew that around 6, the streets were relatively empty and I’d be able to walk through the village in my exercise clothes as unnoticed as possible here. My plan was to run to the outside of town and down a small paved, tree lined path that goes through the sugar cane fields.

After rising at 6 am for attempt number one, I was able to make it out of the town, but quickly had to stop, exhausted by the excessive heat and smoky exhaust that issues from all cars here as they pass.

Attempt two the next morning was slightly better, except that I had forgotten to charge my ipod, and thus was treated to the slight buzzing of the towering power lines which decorate the fields for the entirety of my run, not to mention running into a number of my students who were walking on the road, going to the school for tuition. I greeted them, red faced and breathless and wondering why I was persisting with this madness.

I had more reason for wondering, it turns out. Later in the evening, the principal’s family called us over to visit.

The principal looked at me after we’d sat down and said, “My wife says that someone in the village told her they saw you out for exercise. You are doing jogging?”

“Yes,” I said.

“To lose some weight?” Sejalben asked me.

“Uh,” I said, “no… just, you know, because it’s good for you.”

“We are thinking that you should be doing jogging in here on these grounds,” the principal said.

“But sir, the boys will be awake then and I feel a little silly,” I replied.

“Yes, they will jog with you,” he said with a smile which suddenly turned serious, “but it is safe here and in the country, it is not safe. There are… wild animals.

“Wild… animals?”

He continued with much seriousness. “Today, a leopard has been spotted in the very area in which you are running.”

His wife produced the Gujarati newspaper article detailing this particular tidbit of information. There was a sizeable picture of a family staring down at a huge pawprint in the mud.

“A leopard,” I repeated.

“Yes, a big cat,” he offered for clarification.

Oh god. “Well, you can trust I’ll stay right here then,” I said.

“But don’t worry,” he added. “It cannot get in here. And it will not attack unless it is in self-defense. But don’t poke it with a stick.”

I mean really, what else is there to say?

Best,
Cat