Imagine

I woke up early this morning and the eerie illuminated dial of my digital watch told me it was 4:18am. Try as I could, I was unable to go back to sleep. I stared like an owl into the darkness outside my bedroom window and soon heard the distant call for "Aazaan" at a nearby mosque. My immediate reaction was a flood of thoughts on the tense and precarious situation in the middle-east, with governments being overthrown and the global economic climate bracing for another salvo of fiscal mayhem.

I went back a few decades in time and remembered the Iran revolution and the rise of Khomeini. I was at St Xaviers College then and my very best friend Haji Ghulam Reza (I was impressed that he shared the same last name as the over-thrown Shah of iran) was concerned for his friends and family back in Tehran. My nostalgia of our puerile antics in college and the blatant flirting episodes, was interrupted by the soft-footed trot of Dojo' paws as he came over for a snuggle. I hugged him with relief realizing that there are but a few things in life that are immutable; and one of them is the love exuded by a pet, especially a dog, like our adorable Daschund.

My alarm went off and I rose quickly to set the coffee maker for my very own concoction of "Cafe Mocha". I felt the caffeine kick in and kick out the last vestige of sleep-deficit-filled fatigue. It is amazing how someone stumbled upon coffee and beer, two ambrosias that are part of a large spectrum of cannabinoids. I pulled on my running shoes and went out to meet up with a rather small group that was turning up for our weekend run. These are runs that provide spice and solace to an otherwise stressful and bland existence.

The run itself was very refreshing and it was one of those days when I finished feeling "comfortably tired" as Arthur Lydiard puts it in his training manual. However, for good measure and since I had a half hour in hand I went off on my own to skirt a loop around a dried up pond. It was on this brief sojourn that I remembered John Lennon and how utopian his dream was, when he put together the words of "Imagine";

Imagine there's no countries,
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace

You...you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You...you may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

What a wonderful world

I have been slacking on my runs and taking it too easy since the last few weeks (baring the recent full marathon run). I seem to enjoy lying in bed long after my alarm has gone off; and surprisingly, I am able to go back to sleep! I told myself last night, that I've about had it with this tryst with sloth and that I need to call on my "other self"; the Sergeant (Pepper) that barks at dawn saying, "Wake ye, wake ye, you good for nothin' bums - and line up for parade with your shoes shined enough, to reflect your clean shaven face!"

And so it happened that my alarm beeped this morning and got me rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, still contemplating some ridiculous excuse such as "tomorrow I'll run twice as long!". I sighed and dragged myself to the kitchen, wondering whether age was catching up with me. The aroma of coffee, as always awakened my senses, and it was while sipping the scalding java that I thought of a plan to re-ignite my senses to the power of my inner GPS (my "Rating of Perceived Exertion") and do a run that would last as long as I want it to, with nary a physiological indication of distress.

I started out hesistantly with nothing more than a shuffle, ready to walk in case my ventilatory threshold went over the brink. But lo and behold, I had soon made the transition to a canter and then I had to hold my horses, or I would have galloped:). It must be the two days of high quality plyometrics, I thought. What else could be the reason for my being able to float and glide along so easily in the rich green forest that I had now entered. For once, I was not looking at the road blurring past, but up at a beautiful sunrise, blue skies, wispy white clouds and dense undergrowth of tree branches dried to tinder. I felt happy that I had dispersed the clouds of slumber, in whose comfort I had been sinking for a while. I felt the rich guttural strains of Louis Armstrongs' classic fill my senses, even as a beatific smile graced my countenance.

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world

The colours of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shakin' hands, sayin' "How do you do?"
They're really saying "I love you"

I hear babies cryin', I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll ever know
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself, what a wonderful world