Delhi Delivered 18.12.2017

Travelling to India was far off of my radar. It wasn’t even on my radar. The thought of travelling to the 3^rd World just didn’t have the trigger to ignite my happiness.
The slickness of Western Europe with its efficient transport, pleasant public environments, order, cleanliness and only the one poor guy and his dog at the bottom of the stairs of the subway begging for beans, tickles my cheese. America. America for its boldness, its slice of pie, its pace, its romance, its passion, its A&F store, its fast paced street action, its black and white cop cars and its jelly donut reality, now that flips my pancake.

With a renewed vigour for architecture and seeing and experiencing the great buildings of the world, I’d decided on exploring the work of Le Corbusier, a French giant of architecture, and possibly the greatest Modernist to have sketched on a serviette.
This exploration, this pilgrimage would take me to a city called Chandigarh-A city in no other place on this planet other than the ‘I’ in Brics. India.

I flew into Delhi on a triple 7 Dreamliner having eaten my last prepared meal-a pre-heated, coagulated, nutrient deficient clump that had been stamped to expire only in the year 2019. For two weeks, my fill, tuna, lots of tuna, oats, nuts and biltong, given my dietary requirements would have to suffice.
You can call me Freddy Mercury.

Before arriving in the East, the imperialist, colonialist that i’m said to be, ordered a driver and a car to zoot me from monument to monument, hotel to hotel and city to city. At the airport I was greeted by my placard-holding driver Gajendar. Looking like a cookie-cutter replica of The Simpson’s Apu, with his tiny moustache and side parting, his aviator style starch white shirt with shoulder beret holders and navy blue pants, he lassooed me with an orange flower necklace and embraced me. How cheesy.
Gajendar was there to open the door for me and to pack my bags into the car, he was there to play his Michael Jackson cd and his Taylor Swift one too, he was there to tell me whether id spent too much on curios, or that my Blackberry wasn’t suited to ‘royalty’. I’ll be giving him a good rating on Trip Advisor.

Once id been dropped off at my hotel which sat behind the main drag, offering some respite from the tumult just off it’s doorstep I needed to shot blast myself to the sights and sounds of a convulsing megalopolis.
 The street is where i’d experience the convulsing energy of Delhi. Seeing its people on ground level, experiencing what they were experiencing is where I’d get my opinion. With the day-light dampened by the setting sun, the blanketing fog and the swirling dust, I doubled knotted my hiking boot straps,  hitched my camera to my side and stepped out of the peaceful, shiny reflective hotel lobby into a sensory Big Bang.

Delhi is a total epileptic fit, convulsing and heaving. It’s a Jackson Pollock in its drip, splat and fling chaos. Skipping from street edge to pavement regularly dodging dogs and detritus I breathed in the spirit of the city. I swivelled and pivoted in leaps and bounds, avoiding bumping into people, bikes and ghostly, shepherd-less bovine. I walked the tightrope between helmetless motorcycle riders and green three-wheeled tuk tuks hurtling through the city’s streets like wood borers unconstrained. I sucked my tummy in, turned sideways, making me skinnier than a Wimpy Kid avoiding the pronged piercing of horned bulls and the bumps of horse-drawn carts. As I smiled on, I responded ‘hello’ to the Indian, his oil-slick black hair, cut, styled and coiffed, looking Bollywood primed drinking chai, selling wares, leaning Jimmy-Dean style against his wartime-looking Royal Enfield. I went on bended knee, camera in firing position to shoot two shop owners requesting their moment in time. I flik-flakked over the upright antenna-like tails of dogs, triple-piked over the gas burning chai brewers and naan bread bakers, sniffing the curry-ied air of street food makers, his goods oil fried his shirt certainly not tie-dyed.

Heading back to my hotel district, the now set sun leaving a black canvas for the neon glows of hotel signage to punch the night’s sky, i kicked my dustied heels against the hotel lobby mat, and left a day behind.

With exhaustion pummelling my body i flicked the light, tossed my pit stained shirt to ground, set the shower to warm, washed away the days residue, then laid myself to rest for the sun will rise again.
Sun-up, a godly greeting, two minutes for oats, 5 minutes for coffee and the Suzuki sedan pulled up perpendicular to greet me. Look up, look down, quick camera shot, head pivots on neck tearing back to see through the rear view mirror, ‘that’s  the Red-hued Fort’. The car rolls up to stop before the Jama Masjid, a mosque neighbouring old Delhi. I unsheath my feet as required and gingerly strolled its grounds, my toes standing upright poking the morning sky avoiding making contact with the pigeon-turd pummeled earth. My camera in loaded position seeking  the classical cliché shot of Indian woman in traditional, pulsingly, bright sari sitting alone, in the vastness of space. I get it.

With it, i leave it, but surely with athletes foot. Calculating, poring over my G-shok,i shoot a glance driver-side. Give me an hour. Unhinged from my driver, I plug my eyes in, and hit the record button. There in the Chandni Chowk Market, my blue orbs record the arms-length narrow streets, the countless tuk-tuks hovering around the tourist centres jostling for space like racing steeds penned before the gun, crumbling colonial buildings of a foregone empire, electric cables strung as tree vines in an urban jungle and moments of Indian lives. I blink, and download what i’ve just seen to the memory bank of my brain.

Tick Tock the hour’s gone. Click, bang, i shut the back door, im sat back in the pleather covered passenger seat slip sliding from left side of car to right side of car, as the driver bobs and weaves his way to Humayun’s Tomb, a precursor to the Taj Mahal. The tomb, i’m there to tick the boxes, I’m not so enthused by monument hopping but I give in to the process and super soak the experience.
The school kids on a school trip run riot. They see this milk white bra from SA. We pose. Rip, flip, zoom, click. Compose message, attach photo.post to Twitter.

The day but later, I’m Indy-five-Hundreded to the Qutub Minar, the tallest brick tower in India. Hand over my cash card, swish, 500 rupees in the red, labelled an ‘high paying individual’, a free piddle at the urinal and i’m shuffled to the express queue. Boom.
My digital camera on automatic, I shoot the whole 9 yards, rat-a-tat-tat. My head cocked at 45 degrees beaming skyward like a dish seeking satellites. Indians their arms extended upwards, phones in hand, and cheap poses abound, selfied themselves to social media eternity.

A run and a dash and ive got the India Gate in pocket. And there, there in the distance,at the end of the straightest line India ever saw sits The Presidents House and her nestled Parliamentary buildings.
The South African connection is glaring. A bow to the Union Buildings Mr Lutyens.

With the days viewing done, I put horizontal right hand over perpendicular left hand and called ‘time out’.

With a life time of footage, we beat a path back to the hotel leaving behind in the background the bleeting horns of cars. Setting my phone alarm to ring at the stroke of ‘new day’, I put my head to recharge on the puffy cushion, my body in its jammies and i flip the light switch.
The Delhi cut a deep gash into my mug, that’s no Joker, that’s a smile on my face.

The Lobe of Auricle 04.06.2017

This is a clichéd example of triumph over adversity. It just is that. You may want to read on, or you may wish to walk out.

It was going to be a struggle.I’d come in injured and had a 3 week layoff before the race. Having not finished a marathon in under 4 hours that season, seeded in ‘F’ batch the odds were against me and as a result had very little confidence in the day. As I stared at the runners ahead of me, to the side of me, sucking up the grotesque body odours belching from bodies , i wondered what on heavens earth I was doing there.

30km in, with a sudden jolt to my shin as my foot reached land fall, the thought of it all ending shot straight to the forefront of my cerebellum. Earlier on, my mind had disengaged from the task. I worked myself to the periphery of the road and looked across my shoulder to the masses pouring along like cake batter from a bowl.  Like a universal planet complete with numerously orbiting moons so felt my head and its thought on race day. An injury that plagued me a month prior plagued me now. I’d decided I would bail.

 Approaching the medical rescue vehicle I stood alongside the medic man. ‘What are you looking for?, he enquired. ‘I want to get into the van’, I responded. Scanning me up and down, he grimaced and said, ‘no you aren’t, you look fine’. Stunned by his response, with not much else to do but run, rabbit, run, I ran, still dis-connected, still dejected. At halfway in 5:50 I was a fox’s pelt on the bareback of a Russian Bear hunter. Icing my shin throughout the race bore me some pain relief, but it didn’t turn back the clock.

With 23km to go, i pulled over to the side of the road where Brett stood. With my Jekyll speaking to my Hyde i’d decided i’d be comfortable without a finish. We embraced. “Chaido, you’re going to make it in 11:56”. Thinking some wonderous app had predicted my time, I raised an eye. Maybe there was hope. Being reinvigorated by the news, I clucked the sticky peanut butter sarmie off of my palette and set off. I came across an informal bus of 6 or 7, piloted by a young black woman confident in her stride supported by her co pilot with tambourine in hand. This cluster, i thought,  was to be my motivation. I held on tight. With baseless confidence i figured that if I sat with them my chances could be golden. With 20 to go, i bit my lip... hard.  The energy id unconsciously conserved in the first half was finding its way to my heart, lungs n legs.
And then given the elevation on Polly’s, I lost them. A spectator on the road shouted as I walked past, ‘if you get to the top of Polly’s in the next ten minutes, you’ll finish.’
And with a strength I never knew I had, I put nose to grind stone and pushed hard rising, rising up Polly Shortts.  Hitting the red timing mat, I crested her within those 10 minutes of the Polly’s Cut-off. I now had 55 minutes for the last 7km. And then, there in the fading light i saw my bus. I cast my hook and reeled them in, never losing them again. The pilot gave consistency, and tambourine man gave us rhythm. Coming into the race course, an unfamiliar sight, i was in awe. My relief, I could feel. We crossed the line with 4 minutes to spare. 11:56
I have no idea how i achieved this finish. It was the hardest fought day of all my Comrades, and now my most rewarding medal to date.
I subsequently asked Brett whether the Comrades app had predicted my finish time. ‘No app’, he said, ‘just a figure i’d come up with’.