What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (In Bangalore, In My Head)
Running in Bangalore is a pleasure most days. The air sits softer on your skin here. It doesn’t feel like Delhi, where the air is already on its deathbed, or Mumbai, where humidity feels like it’s auditioning to drown you. Here, the weather actually makes my skin feel alive. Like it’s quietly applauding me for stepping out. Which is funny, because I always step out wearing the same exact running uniform: one tired t-shirt and one equally tired pair of shorts. They’ve been washed into oblivion, stretched, stained, but somehow they still feel like home. A runner’s armor doesn’t need variety. It just needs reliability.
Of course, there was a time I couldn’t run at all. In the beginning, it was shin pain. Every step felt like the road was politely stabbing me. Then came the actual injury. Two whole months of not being able to run. Which is to say, two months of restless scrolling, imaginary pacing, and realizing how much I’d built my mornings around this ridiculous ritual. Coming back after that break was like meeting an old friend. You can’t believe you ever let them slip away.
Now I wake up to sunrises I never thought I’d wake up to see three years ago. But the mornings have their own quiet payoff. Sometimes, in between breaths, I’ll notice the sunlight cutting through trees in streaks. It reminds me of the Tyndall effect, that science experiment from school. Which then spirals me into thinking about my science teacher, the one who forced us to actually think instead of memorizing answers. If she hadn’t made me believe in the value of curiosity, I doubt I’d be here running, writing, or even questioning why I still do this. Funny how a simple beam of light can drag you back through years of memory.
Not everything is poetic, though. This is a metro city. Which means fat, dead mice line the pavements. Guts spilling, flattened by traffic, a grotesque wallpaper of urban life. And yet, every time I see them, I can’t help but think: isn’t this what life does to all of us? We’re sprinting, ambitious, full of frantic movement, and then, one random day, we’re roadkill. Not to sound grim, but it’s a reminder: you better enjoy the stretch while you can.
That’s what Murakami gets at when he compares running to meditation. The idea that thoughts come and go. Clouds drifting across a sky you don’t need to control. The trick is to let them pass. Sometimes I’m worrying about a deadline. Sometimes it’s what dosa I’ll eat after. Sometimes it’s about the aunty who used to shuffle past me and hasn’t shown up for a week. The thoughts arrive, they leave, and I keep moving.
Murakami also writes about aging. How you won’t outrun your younger self. I’m only 24, but it still resonates. I already know the pride of smaller races, of doing something quietly instead of chasing a shiny finish line. I already crave solitude, to be left alone in my rhythm, away from the noise of people and their expectations. Maybe I’m aging in dog years. Or maybe I just get what he means when he says consistency matters more than glory.
Running has given me more than cardio endurance. It’s given me those little joys: missing strangers I’ll never talk to, watching light split into colors I studied in dusty labs, realizing how absurd yet vital it is to keep showing up, day after day, in the same shorts. There’s comfort in the repetition, even when life is unpredictable.
And maybe that’s the whole thing. Running is just me carving out a small space where nothing else matters. Where I can remember science class, mourn dead mice, laugh at myself, and still feel strangely proud for not quitting. Murakami may have said it better, but in my own way, I’ve lived it.
