Waking this morning to the sound of waves and birdsong, I donned my running shoes and took a run down the narrow lanes and through the neighbouring village giving the villagers a sight they wouldn’t expect early in the morning.
The honking and vehicle fumes that normally accompany my runs in Bangalore being replaced by the sounds of cocks crowing and the smell of cooking fires. The rhythmic scraping of coconuts could be heard through open doorways as the coconut flesh was removed for the breakfast chutney.
I ran past old ladies with big gold nose rings, baskets of fish on their heads and their saris wrapped round their legs in the style of the fisher-folk.
Children on their way to school barefoot, the girls with red ribbons in their braided hair. Big shining eyes and glistening white teeth as they giggled, waved and called out “Good Morning”.
Men squatting on their haunches reading the morning paper and sipping masala chai from small plastic cups outside the village tea stall.
Dogs staring puzzled, undecided whether to give chase to the strange-looking pale coloured human. Crows squabbling over some edible detritus in the middle of the road scattered as I approached, but cows not even blinking as I ran past.
If all runs could be like this, through the live theatre that is daily life in an Indian village, the whole world would be running!
