by Sridhar Thiagarajan
[box]A man who has run a marathon race, reflects on the different races he runs – the sport, the race against the human race, the race against himself, the race against time. Read on to enjoy the play of words as Sridhar Thiagarajan raises some important questions.[/box]So exhausted was he after that grueling marathon race. Extreme level of physical fitness, and the discipline and rigor of his practice ensured that he completed the race, though not in any of the prize winning positions. He came from a small village, had started his life running through the streets and lanes, on the cement pavement along the gutters, through the open fields, under the vast expanse of the sky and on the green carpets in the fields. Nobody, including him, knew where his drive to be a runner came from, but it pushed him hard to be a good one. He had won prizes in his school days, which helped him get into a college through the channel for sports people and finally, he ended up representing his country in the long distance run. Ironically, in a larger sense, it had always been a race for him against his own race – the human race!
He was sitting under the shade of the cool canopy with his eyes closed, with a wet white cloth covering his face, as beads of sweat trickled down his body that hot evening. Sipping a glass of water, he pondered if he would ever be able to run another marathon again as age was winning him in its race. Slowly and steadily it went, with no sense of acceleration, but it went past him, giving him an ironical smile. And that was one race he knew he could never win, despite his speed and practice.
‘This is a sport where I run, and try to win’, he thought. ‘When I race against my kindred from my race, as a sport, I enjoy the challenge. More importantly I continue to race against myself as well, stepping up the bar, in an effort to improve the quality of my life, and stretch my capability. But why is the race of life so maddening?’ he reflected.
The next moment he mused about how the human race, right from birth, ran a race, where, despite not being a willing partaker, the momentum caught on to one and all so infectiously. ‘So much so that by the time an individual realizes, he is already running and is a part of the race not realizing when he started to run in the race of life. Not a moment gets spared thereafter, to ever look at life’s trivialities, nature’s eloquence in its silence, to look at anything in nature as it is, devoid of his self-constructed prisms through which life is always viewed. This results in complications that could be avoided, but he still only runs faster’ he pondered. He then thought about how the faster a man ran, the winning point seemed to move farther, evading his stretched tired legs, not allowing him to take a second to stop and look at the world around. A small hesitation meant loss of his position in the race, resulting in insecurity and fear, all driving him deeper and deeper into this mad neurotic spiral to run faster. Ultimately not aware of why he was even here, in this race, he still continued with the mad rush. All in the so called spirit of competition and the need to survive! Will there ever be a point of elation at the end? He was not sure.
After all, this mad dog race was, for him to survive, and survive he did, for he wanted to enjoy life, find a certain fulfillment, a point where he could be with himself; but the very process of competition which he adopted or rather was forced to adopt by that mysterious whip, drove him to a diametrically opposite situation. It was like the mirage in the desert, the more he ran, the farther it moved away from him… Was there ever an end to this madness? Will the race among the members of the human race ever end? Could all walk with one other in complete harmony, where one could be at peace with oneself without destroying the other, with complete understanding of the other and of his own self?
“What is it that I want to achieve and will my present maddening competitive way of life ever achieve that?” he thought. The wet cloth on his face was beginning to dry, and he was shaken out of his stream of thoughts by the setting sun………………..Would he rise up a different man, to be one of a kind?
Pic : postcool – http://www.flickr.com/photos/22933113@N07/
[facebook]share[/facebook] [retweet]tweet[/retweet]
