The Hindu Business Line : At the end of morning walks...

The morning walks have given me Desai, who still ends his morning appearance on the roads puffing a cigarette at the tea shop, and, of course, there is my good friend Lachman Singh, now 80 years old.

It is 10 years since one was pushed into the habit of an early morning walk. In 1996, the doctor said so, and, in 2006, vocalises the same message. In 10 years, the addiction has grown and the doctor reminds me that it is the only devotion of mine with which he is reasonably contented.

In this time, one has walked a bit of Borivili (west); there were green swathes with paths cutting into them and one could drop into regular strides without bothering about the direction; thoughts would pop in and out as if one was a popcorn machine; sometimes you laughed loudly to yourself for no reason.

One can still recall a rainy morning watching a croaking male common Indian toad at the edge of a pond with its vocal sac distended like a balloon; the female, which is usually bigger in size, hopped in from somewhere and the two decided to abide by their common law.

In the last two years, most of these green patches have been cemented making way for "smooth roads with raging cars". Now, one walks with the fear of a speeding vehicle elbowing one out of existence; spaces to stand and gaze at the white-breasted kingfisher or magpie robin or the warblers are getting scarce. One is not a Jean Jacques Rousseau to exclaim: "Never did I think so much, exist so vividly and experience so much, as in the journeys I have taken alone and on foot." Nor can one claim kinship with Anatole France who said: "It is good to collect things, but better to go on walks."

There is a book styled The Vintage Book of Walking, edited by Duncan Minshull with a foreword by Richard Holmes saying: "Because every walk becomes some sort of story, whether a mere anecdotal dawdle round the block, or an entire heroic epic across a continent. Every walk has a beginning, a middle, and some kind of end (though rarely the one we had in mind). Every walk tells."

One can equate with Holmes as the morning walks have given me Desai, who still ends his morning appearance on the roads puffing a cigarette at the tea shop, which has changed hands thrice in the last 10 years. After the tea, he reads quietly the Marathi newspaper Loksatta edited by the Leftist, Kumar Ketkar. Of course, there is my good friend Lachman Singh, now 80 years old.

Last Sunday, Rama had arranged a small lunch for him, his wife and his grand-daughter Utsav, who is a newscaster on a TV news channel, earning about Rs 80,000 per month. That was Lachman Singh's virtuous wish — to see Utsav on the TV screen every day.

Lachman has left the rice fields and lives in a three-room apartment in a high-rise building at Chikkuwadi, where the rich of Borivili stay, thanks to a housing loan from a bank. My son presented him with a mobile costing Rs 12,000.

Grandfather Lachman is a bit upset over the long hours of work put in by Utsav. "Ye ajeeb hai. Sabere 6 baje nikalthi hai aur sham ko 9 baje athi hai. Mere se bath bhi nahin karti hai. Kahti hai thak gaya hoon (It is a peculiar job. She goes at 6 in the morning and returns at 9 in the evening. She has no time to talk to me. Says she is too tired)," a worried Lachman told me munching a dal wada, his favourite.

My 80-year-old friend has stepped aside of modern times and does not know the erratic ways of the TV medium.

Yet, he is there in front of his Sony set when Utsav comes alive with the day's news and the two talk to each other across the screen. He needs a stick to walk and is bent at the shoulders. We meet regularly on Saturdays at the Ganesh temple at Vazira where Lachman recites the Hanuman Chalisa in a musical tenor.

However, my family bumps into him through the week at the yoga classes conducted by his friend. He charges Rs 300 a month, while for Lachman it is free.

For about 10 days, Lachman Singh got me to attend the classes after the morning walk. The yoga teacher has learnt his tricks from a guru in Benares whose picture hangs on the wall. He starts the classes with shavasana, where one lies down and pretends to be a dead body. "Stop thinking. You can hear your heart beep to you," he says.

Mostly one nodded off and had visions of my many bosses (past and present), including Kurup, my immediate chief, doing a tribal dance with their faces encased in a variety of masks.

One always broke out of the dream a touch guilty for not being good at the job. A Verrier Elwin would have applauded the show but not this writer. Never did one stop thinking and shavasana became a punishment. Then followed meditation with legs locked in padmasana. It was a bit of bore with the teacher quietly intoning Om.

One morning while meditating I decided to walk out and told Lachman Singh it was madness. He felt unhappy. But my family is grateful to him.

If my wife Rama is not at the classes, one can find her meditating at home delaying my morning coffee by about 45 minutes. As for Lachman Singh, he comes out glowing with life and living every day.

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At the end of morning walks...

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