Beginning of Big-inning

This Saturday should see me continuing with my squash and tennis – activities that we began with full earnest the last weekend. Despite a dip in the expected number of participants tomorrow, I feel that there is going to be an increase in the level of excitement, as our games would have improved (and I had time to catch some of the Australian Open action to iron out some chinks in my armour!).

Tomorrow should also see me fulfilling the first step of what, hopefully, is going to be a momentous chapter in my life. Er…momentous is too grandiose an adjective. I guess the word I am looking for lies somewhere between rigorous and fulfilling. Either way I should have penned the first page of this chapter tomorrow.

I have never been a deeply religious person. I do have my fascination with gods and goddesses (the proper kind!), but this is mainly in the area of mythology. But if there has been a thought that has been trying to make its entry into my mind for quite a few years, it has to be this. Actually I can trace the origins of my taste of inclination to visit the Shabari Mala temple to sometime in 1995. The calls have been more frequent, albeit few in number, over the years. And now seems to be the best time to actually carry it out. I will hopefully have 2 months off before I enter the corporate jungle once again…and I don’t see any better way to begin the break by doing this act of “spiritual cleansing”.

The atheists and those of an agnostic bent would definitely be scoffing at my idea. Despite a small part of me wanting to issue a disclaimer stating that this entire exercise is areligious, I don’t want to. God, whoever he is, has been kind to me most of the time. Of course, there have been instances when I would have gladly sold my luck in some areas to certain other spheres where I have been pretty luckless. But that is just me being “the grass is greener on the other side”.

As I was explaining to Rajjo over the past few days of our late-night chatting, these 40 days of rigor should serve me as a good way of forgetting things. “Forget” is too extreme a word as I am cursed with a long memory. (“cursed” is the appropriate word because I really do wish to forget so many things!) The least I hope to do in the near future is to clutter my mind with physiological problems and thus deprive the other “monster” of its prowling activities.

My partner in this expedition is Avinash who is in effect trying to do the exercise for very similar reasons. Running does have its benefits, but eventually you reach a phase where your body does its work on its own and your mind is left vacant for the “monster” to prance about unhindered. Hopefully all this will stop. I wish!

PS1: I need your wishes of luck for the next 40 days. (And not your sympathies!)
PS2: If you find the concept of the “monster” a tad King-esque to comprehend, my apologies. I couldn’t find a better analogy. Nor could I afford to be more open in a public page.