Few photographs from Eastern Express Highway Half marathon - 4th August 2013

Havana Bay

Martin Cruz Smith is a first timer for me and I did not realise that he had written Gorky Park which was made into a movie a few years ago. Arcady Renko is a humourless Russian investigator sent to Havana to investigate the death of another little known Russian spy in a water accident. The book begins very slowly and takes even more slowness to get into the characters of the plot. There are few police people and a Cuban female investigator Ofelia all of whom don't want to investigate the Russian's death. There is a liberal sprinkling of the mistrust between Cuba and Russia in the book a kind of Cuban hate of Russia for leaving them in a lurch and sort of leaving them as holding the last communist post in the world. The plot gets bogged down repeatedly in the Cuban Russian interplay of emotions which is not dispelled despite a few more murders taking place. Smith has done a good job in slowly unfolding the plot to its conclusion in the Havana Bay but I thought the ending was a bit too abrupt. He should have allowed the emotions between Arcady and Ofelia to be taken to a logical conclusion. This was supposedly Arcady's fourth book in the series, it would be interesting to read his earlier works on Arcady and also his later works. 

Dangerous Curves

Picked up a book called "Dangerous Curves" by Peter Cheyney on a seconds books sale somewhere in Bombay, either because it was way too cheap or the it looked sorta good to read. Got down to reading it last week and was pleasantly surprised to read it - a riveting fast moving fiction with mystery suspense thrown in galore. Then I researched Peter Cheyney on the internet because i have never heard of this guy, was surprised to learn that he belonged to another era practically born in 1896 and died in 1951, relatively young just like Raymond Chandler another of my favorite. In the first few pages itself I discovered another of my favorite author James Hadley Chase in his writing. Chase who wrote many potboilers and wrote about the underdogs and the underdregs of the society has beautiful flowing narrative to his writing. This book is a Slim Callaghan mystery - that is the name of the investigator who is given the job of investigating the wayward stepson of a vivacious Thorla Riverton who is 30 years younger to her husband and whose husband is dying of complications from old age. Slim Callaghan has obviously a very disruptive style of operating which is not appreciated by Thorla Riverton and sparks fly between the two, she being attractive. Slim Callaghan being the quintessential fictional detective is able to comprehend the hidden facts as well as portend the future shape of things to come. One thing i did not like about Slim Callaghan is his excessive smoking and drinking, but what the hell, this book was written in 1939 when there were more worldly matters to be concerned than the post modern James Bondish type of fit action heroes. From this Wikipeadia entry here it seems Peter Cheyney lived the life of his fictional protagonists and died young having penned 35 novels and 150 short stories. This book is "out of print" and therefore a rare copy. Books such as these are rare to come by. Highly recommended reading for fiction fans. 

Bhag Milkha Bhag

Bhag Milkha Bhag is a biopic of a man who was the first athletic sporting hero of a newly independent India and I would say about 30 years late in the making. He gave up running in the mid 60s, Tokyo Marathon of 1964 being probably his last major championship. Bio pics were never popular in mainstream Indian cinema popularly called as Bollywood except as documentaries by the Indian government channels. It is only recently that few bio pics are being made which is closely resembling the lives of the protagonists otherwise they make movies "loosely based on somebody's life". Either ways, the directors take extreme liberty with the true content of the person's lives introducing elements that are never there in their real life. Bhag Milkha Bhag is therefore the story of Milkha Singh's life. It is also a sad story of Bollywood's obsession with sex, skin show, six packs and songs. Even if the four S were removed yet the story would have been beautiful enough for people to connect to the person's life who is venerated as a God in sporting circles in India. Of course in India any yadav, kumar and shinde who knows how to hold a bat or bowl a long hop is also venerated in a mad cricket crazy country. So the story is about his uprooting from his village in Pakistan, butchering of his parents, brother and sister in front of his own eyes and his traumatic train travel to India as an orphan where he has only his siblings to take care of him at a tender young age of 10. His early life in the village involved trekking to a school 10 kms away by going through sand dunes which must have been the major contributing factor to his athletic prowess in latter life. The narrative of the movie does not follow a linear format and therefore it juxtaposes from one situation to another. Army was where he first came into contact with running and the recognition from winning at running gave him the impetus to furiously pursue his pursuits. They allowed a few inaccuracies to creep up such as his breaking the world record in 400 metres which as per this Wikipaedia entry here does not show any such record in his name. In the movie they have depicted that he lost the 1960 Rome medal due to his angst and anguish at the loss of his parents and siblings in Pakistan but that was already erased in the Indo-Pak friendship series which took place in the mid 50s where he decimated the Pakistani athletes and extracted succour for that loss. Bollywood's obsession with six pack abs is almost delusional. Probably the movie makers think that anybody who has a body with huge muscles is a champion in every sport forgetting that every sport does not require huge bulging muscles. Why should an athlete have a sick pack abs with huge bulging muscles - They should have done their homework properly. This youtube video here shows that Milkha started off fast but started fading in the later stages of the 400 metres final in Rome Olympics - a case of tactical, strategic error rather than angst at his loss in Pakistan. The same tactical strategic errors continue to be committed by later Indian athletes such as Sriram Singh who had a devastating first lap in the 800 metres final of the 1976 Montreal Olympics only to fade to finish 7th in the race which was won by Cuba's Alberto Juantorena in a then world record time. Juantorena later acknowledged that he was able to break the world record only to the initial burst of speed by Sriram Singh. With all these inaccuracies and the formula system of Bollywood, the movie is well made with decent performances by all the actors including some bravura performance by Divya Dutta and Pawan Malhotra as the sister and coach respectively of Milkha. Sonam Kapoor as the love interest of Milkha has done a delightful cameo role. An absolutely must watch by all the youngsters of India, all athletes irrespective of whether they are runners, shooters, wresters, boxers. Too many songs perhaps elongated the movie to little more than 3 hours. Farhan Akhtar in his six pack has done a decent role as Milkha Singh.  

Value Added service - TRAI guidelines

TRAI has issued new guidelines on activation and de-activation of Value Added Services to subscribers of telecom services. The salient features of the new guidelines are:

1) VAS activation procedure to encompass all forms of Value Added Services such as WAP, SMS, Mobile-Internet, Tele-Calling etc.
2) Second consent of the subscriber is necessary before the VAS can be activated. The second consent should be on a dedicated consent gateway which is owned on a third party platform whereas the first consent is on the service providers platform. Only after receiving the second confirmation should the VAS be activated.
3) Common de-activation procedure and all de-activation to be completed in 4 hours
4) De-activation procedure to be widely published and disseminated for information to the subscribers and the general public
5) Auto Renewals to be done only after 24 hours of providing information to the subscriber about the auto renewal on SMS etc.
6) In case of wrong activation amount to be refunded within 24 hours of making the request where the VAS validity is for more than one day and where the VAS validity is less than 24 hours, then the refund should be carried out within 6 hours of the request.
7) In case of SMS mode of activation, no response time should be 60 minutes and in case no response is received within that time i.e. 60 minutes then it should be treated as "no activation required"
8) When the VAS service is activated, then immediately the de-activation number, validity of the VAS service and renewal amounts should be intimated to the consumer.

This ensures that service providers activate VAS only upon service the positive consent from the subscribers and not otherwise as hitherto, many service providers were randomly adding the VAS without taking any consent from the subscribers and creating many problems for the subscribers when the de-activation request was made.

A copy of the TRAI guidelines can be found here

Telecommunication Consumers' Education and Protection Fund

TRAI has stipulated that the excess monies collected by service providers from subscribers which were getting deposited into the Telecommunication Consumers' Education and Protection Fund and which was hitherto kept as fixed deposit only with corporation bank, can now be kept with any bank who is providing better rate of interest on these deposits. I wonder how much monies have been collected in this fund and to what purpose they have been utilising it for. Anyways, a copy of the TRAI circular can be found here

The Fate of a Man and Early Stories

The Fate of a Man by Mikhail Sholokov, the Nobel Prize winner for literature in 1965 and six other short stories. All the stories are gut wrenching heart rending tales of sorrow, grieving, loss of family, sufferings due to the turmoil in Soviet Russia in the early part of the last century primarily the fight of the Cossacks against the then newly emerging Red Army. At several times during reading the stories, I had to take a break because it became extremely difficult to continue reading. The love of a father towards the children is the same whether it is in communist society or capitalist society and these were also evident in "Fathers and Sons" by Ivan Turgenev. Sholokov wrote "And Quiet Flows the Don" for which he was given the Nobel Prize. "The Fate of a Man" is another masterpiece from Sholokov. 

Standardisation in Health Insurance

http://www.irda.gov.in/ADMINCMS/cms/Circulars_Layout.aspx?page=PageNo2012

IRDA has issued circular for standardisation of certain terms used in Health Insurance Policies - Some of the definitions are obviously amended definitions. Also included is the definition of Portability which means that portability of health insurance policies will be on the anvil soon. The circular is given on the link above.

Going Crazy by Otto Friedrich

"Going Crazy" by Otto Friedrich is a kind of biography or a history of insanity or madness through the ages. Otto does a good job in keeping the narrative flowing throughout the pages with first hand accounts by many patients. Apart from celebrated cases he has also dwelt on the ordinary people's lives disrupted by what he calls as "craziness" - by all accounts all of us are somewhat crazy at some times or other - it only varies by degrees, but while majority are able to keep their thoughts clear there are many who lose control of their minds. He has also written about the cures which in medieval times ranged from cruelty itself like chaining the patients to drugs, therapies etc. It was surprising to read that so many celebrated people had problems in their lives. I would highly recommend this book to those interested in different genres like non-fiction, biographies etc. Rating 5/5

Ultra Marathon Man

Just finished reading “Ultra Marathon Man – Confessions of an All Night Runner” by Dean Karnazes, an absorbing and overwhelming story of his early athletic prowess, the loss of his sister to an accident, his subsequent forays away from running for 15 years, his rediscovery of running, to running marathons, ultra marathons to crazy distances unheard of before and impossible feats like running the south pole marathon, running 199 miles non stop etc. His heroic attempt at running the Western States 100 miler and Badwater Marathon failing the first time, have been poignantly told. A nice inspirational story with dollops of quotable quotes for keeping in one’s mirror or desktop. The paperback edition has given details of his training, nutrition, strategy etc. so that helps for people attempting to run ultra-marathons and crazy distances. A must read for running addicts. 

Children of the Thunder

Just got around to finish this book "Children of the Thunder" by John Brunner. It is a science fiction book and John Brunner takes a long time to get around to the story. It is about some kids who commit juvenile crime but of such proportions as to shock even the adult mind, crimes, such as running a prostitution racket, protection racket, murder etc. All these kids are ostensibly born out of surrogacy and there are doubts that all these kids might probably be from one donor. First there is an assumption of mind control in the sense that these kids have some kind of psychic power where they can read people's minds and they are brilliant but in a devious way. In between there are newspaper reports of some kind of catastrophe after another taking place somewhere in the world and there is also mention of a General Thrower who is a probably a menace to the society. Peter Levin is a science fiction writer who makes a living by digging up stories on calamities and Dr. Claudia is a science researcher from US who has developed the instinct that there is something violently wrong with these kids and could there be a connection between. Brunner has attempted to carve out a plausible story but it all ends up in one big disappointment, hence the 1 star. 

Marathon Man

Just finished reading "Marathon Man" by Bill Rodgers otherwise known as Boston Billy who won the Boston and New York Marathons 4 times each in the late 70s. Boston Billy has personally autographed this book which was given to my dear friend Bhasker Desai who had ran at this year i.e. 2013 Boston Marathon. Bhasker finished the race and was in the medical tent when the bomb blast took place.

It is a very enchanting and enthralling book with a throbbing narrative in collaboration with Mathew Shepatin. Basically it is an account of his early life and his Boston marathon experience of 1975. The narrative is very interesting in the sense that each chapter starts with his Boston 1975 progress during the race and the later part of the chapter devotes to flashback to his early life as a college student, running with Amby Burfoot who is his original inspiration, his "conscientious objector" status during the Vietnam war, his degree at special education, struggle at getting a job etc. He was a natural born runner with a great capacity for hard work and a body which could take any amount of hard work with very little injuries. The realisation that he could be a top notch marathon runner came to him only during a race with Amby Burfoot in which he raced alongside the great Amby for about 15 miles of a 20 mile race. The seeds of inspiration which Amby sowed in him made him take up competitive racing including marathons. Boston Billy alongwith Frank Shorter, Amby Burfoot and Jeff Galloway were the pioneers of long distance running first in America which then spread to other cities in the world which has since then grown exponentially. His latter attempts at Montreal Olympics of 1976 and thereafter founding a successful running business alongwith his college buddies makes for a good story. It is an excellent book, very inspirational, very nice story of an easygoing hardworking American who loves running dearly. 

The Way Through the Woods

Just finished reading "The Way Through the Woods" by Colin Dexter, my first one of him. It is an Inspector Morse mystery. It is a mystery about a sudden disappearance of a Swedish maiden in England but the case comes to life fully one year after her exit for whatever reasons. Dexter has a different style of writing compared to others such as Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle etc. in the sense that he keeps on dropping some hints here and there by weaving in and out of the story by juxtaposing with riddles etc. The plot keeps the reader in suspense and I like his interplay with relevant quotes at the beginning of each chapter. I would say that Dexter is a "dexterous" writer in that sense.  

Jolly LLB

Sunday evening family time was spent watching Jolly LLB on the computer. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant movie - solid script, keeps flowing, not too much silly dialogues, only a couple of songs, no item songs, no steamy sex scenes, and most importantly, and this is the clincher - Arshad Warsi does not overact. In fact, i suspect he may be secretly congratulating himself on his life's best work. The story is a takeoff on the actual episode of Nanda BMW hit and run case which happened in 1999 in Gurgaon and the case dragged on and on for about twenty years before the Supreme court affirmed the Delhi high court decision to reduce the sentence of the main culprit Mr. Sanjeev Nanda to two years from five years which was awarded to a Delhi trail court. Surprisingly, the Delhi High Court rationale for reducing the sentence was ostensibly that the accused could not have knowledge that his rash driving could cause tragedy to others. A news channel article on this matter can be accessed here And I always thought that the moment a person gets a driving license he is supposed to know that he should not drive rashly. Alternating between parody and reality the movie gives a resounding slap to the present judicial system in the country and to the investigation agencies' corruption and shoddy work. Boman Irani has acted well which is his forte and Saurabh Shukla delivers moment of pure brilliance. I guess the movie must have been made on a modest budget and it surely is a sleeper hit for the producers. 

Shootout at Wadala

Finally saw the movie "Shootout at Wadala" and then read the real story of Manya Surve on Wikipedia. too view the link click here The director has taken too much liberty with the real story, only some portions of the movie matches. The saving grace of the movie is Kangna Ranaut who has acted beautifully and also looks beautiful in sepia tinged 80s camera work. I thought some of our older gangsta movies like Parinda, Satya, Shool, Gangajal were much better than this one. There is not much content in the movie and for that reason the director keeps on doing slo-mos too frequently. Rubberband jaise kicha hai story ko!! John Abraham is sorely disappointing - he can't act to save his life. Shootout series without Vivek Oberoi??? – he is the man!!

Turbaned Tornado

This book "Turbaned Tornado" is a biography of the famous Indian marathoner who ran a marathon at 100 years, Fauja Singh. The writer Kushwant Singh is not the same famous Indian journalist and writer of the same name. It is a nice narrative of the early life of Fauja Singh, how he travelled to London after the death of his loving wife and started running marathons at the age of 89 when most of us would rather be more comfortable walking with a stick!! Fauja is an indomitable spirit and his farmers' genes help him in becoming a rare sportsman and brand ambassador more famous than some sportspersons three or four generations younger than him. His timing of 5.20 hours at the age of 94 is the stuff made of legends. Fauja Singh is truly a great sportsman of India and reading his biography is very refreshing.  

14 Hours - an Insider's Account of the 26/11 Attack

Just finished reading this book by Ankur Chawla - I had expected a gripping saga of the greatest attack on Indian soil since independence but not totally disappointed. He has tried his best to give a nice narrative account of his experience inside the Taj Hotel and succeeded also to some extent. It is obviously his first attempt at writing a book and being a young hotelier I will give full credit to his composure during the worst travail of his life. There are some genuine attempts at humour and it works very well. 

Business Responsibility Reports

SEBI is blindly following the SEC model for reporting and disclosures by corporates in India. Apparently they have mandated Business Responsibility Reports by top 100 companies as per market capitalization. These companies have to give BRRs if their financial years closes after 31st December 2012, which means practically all companies in the 2012-13 financial year bracket. There is a format for the BRRs and recently they have released FAQs on the subject. The earlier circular of august 2012 wherein SEBI introduced the concept of BRRs is available at this link here and the recent faqs is available here

The format is an inclusive format and I am sure many companies would give more information than is mandated and it is more in the nature of a check box kind of report. Some of the information asked for could very well be confidential information so it remains to be seen how corporates deal with it.

Some of the principles enunciated are very vague for eg. Principle 4 talks about disadvantaged, marginalised & vulnerable stakeholders. Really who are these kind of stake holders. There needs to be clarity in this regard. I feel they have blindly copied from somewhere without ascertaining whether these apply to the Indian market.

Annexure 2 of the August 2012 circular is critical as it enumerates the broad based principles on which the BRR is based. These are very ideal principles which if adopted truly by the corporates will lead to very little litigation and cause for concern. But unfair competion, disparaging advertisement, squatting on domain names, human rights and child rights abuses, trampling of employee rights are more the norm rather than the exception.

These principles should be adopted by all corporates in India and not only companies but all persons doing businesses in all forms whether as companies, or partnerships or LLPs etc. 

Another barrier falls!!

Who says marathon is all about running. It’s all bloody mind games buddy, there is no physical activity involved in it, at least after 30 kms, But that is for everybody, for me it is the 22 to 30 kms that plays havoc with my brain. Post 30 kms i get stronger and more determined like a demon, well not exactly like Ravana but more like Ram possessed!!

Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon 2013 was my fourth full marathon and the 2013 edition was the 9^th year in succession that i was participating in. A journey which started in 2004 with a bludgeoning, bedraggled 3.45 hours in the first ever half marathon with barely any practise and not having any concept of what a distance of 21 kms entails. Well 21 kms was daunting those days.

2012 was a relatively quiet year for me in terms of the number of events that i took part in, Auroville was more fun and adventure, while Ladakh was challenging in brutally tough conditions. A couple of smaller distances like 5K, 10K took place in between and there was a training run of 42 kms while Mumtaz Qureshi was attempting his first 100 kilometers and the first Ultra distance of 50 kms along with the Navi Mumbai runners but that was again spaced out throughout the day and not a continuous effort. But Vasai Virar Marathon was the game changer during the year. Last minute entry with barely any preparation for a full marathon to speak about, i still managed to carve out a huge 27 minutes slice off my previous best from SCMM 2012 to return in 5.07 hours when the conditions on the return leg of the marathon was brutal with sun beating down hard and massive traffic snarls along the route. It was a tough marathon to conquer.

Training for the SCMM 2013 was going as per schedule with the last long run of 31.74 kms on the last Sunday of December followed by a fast 21 kms on the first Sunday of the new year and a PB fast 10 kms on the second Saturday followed by a ferocious 5km on the Tuesday of the week before the marathon. All i had to do was another fast 4kms or so on Thursday but a debilitating back ache on Tuesday morning almost put paid my hopes of even starting the marathon. This had happened earlier also during the week before the Bangalore Ultra 2010 and i had recovered by Sunday morning, but there i had almost collapsed after doing 25 kms of the scheduled 37.5 kms. So there was apprehension in the mind and therefore i consulted a couple of my friends urgently soliciting their advice. Reema Agarwal and Raj Vadgama were the saviours as they immediately texted a few stretches to be done which i immediately set upon doing for the remaining days. But not much relief upto Thursday morning had me worried. The back was getting better but there were doubts in the mind as to whether i could survive the entire 42 kms without it giving away. Friday and Saturday were supposed to be complete rest days but i was out on my feet both days and standing for a couple of hours and more. The back was straining all the time. So the hydrating and carbo loading plan also went out of the window. But meeting friends especially upcountry runners on both days was a cathartic relief from the anxiety so i decided to start the marathon and see how the back holds as the kilometres unfolds before me.

So there we were, i.e. Bhasker, Raj, Aishorjyo and myself in the cab from Goregaon to Azad maidan, to meet and greet a few more thousands of like minded insane persons daring to run 42 kms in an unusually cold Sunday morning. The atmosphere at Azad Maidan was electric as usual with runners nervous with anticipation. All set we trotted to the holding area meeting more runners on the way and waiting impatiently for the gates to open. When the gates opened and we started proceeding towards the starting mat, Amar Sundar met me and we started discussing the music concerts in India. Imagine on a marathon morning with a few seconds to go for the start, we were talking about GunsNRoses, Deep Purple and all that rock bands.

It was 5.42 when i crossed the start mat and gingerly proceeded towards Flora Fountain. While it was cold before the start it took only a few kilometres for the body to get warmed up and i started feeling the sweat around my neck. On the way to NCPA i saw the 4.30 hour bus and thought of sticking with them but a few minutes later impatiently left the bus because i thought their pace was too slow. I wanted to put maximum miles in the bank before my back gave away or cramps started affecting me which was on the back of my brain based on previous year’s experience. On the marine drive i again chatted with a few runners while observing that only a couple of music bands were up and playing. There was one music band which was just setting up and to them i hollered “c’mon start the music”. Overall i thought the crowd mobilisation in the early hours and at the start was very poor compared to what we observed during the Vasai Virar Marathon which of course started late at 7.00 a.m. Probably the bitter cold was making marathon friendly Mumbaikars sleep a wee bit longer. The return leg of the Mumbai Marathon was reverberating with the multitude of Mumbaikars out in large numbers, wildly cheering, applauding, shouting, giving various things in neat order. People were out not only in tony Pedder road but also beside the slums of Worli and the bylanes of Mahim. It was a magnificent display of affection that Mumbaikars have for the marathoners in their maximum city.

Kemps Corner flyover and Pedder road incline was the first test for my back but thankfully it held together so i started ripping through to Haji ali but slowed down towards Worli by which time the half marathoners started appearing on the opposite side of the road. This year as compared to last year i decided to focus only on the road and not to look out for my friends mainly because most of my friends had graduated to the full marathon and also to conserve my energy. Reaching the Worli sea link, i went into a zone with pure adrenaline coasting me through. Srivatsan crossed me at the beginning of sea link and gently inquired whether i was on schedule to which i replied that i was ahead of schedule because the 4.30 hour bus was still behind me.

A couple of toilet breaks at the Sea Link behind the hoardings looking out into the Arabian Sea gave the much needed relief to the bladder because i knew there was no toilet until Worli sea face on the return leg. The sun was rising on my right under a mask of mist with the high rises on the background and the lolling fishing boats in the foreground. It was surreal Mumbai which we don’t see often. But running on the Sea Link is also boring because there was no crowd to cheer us and the photographers looked completely bored and were interested more in taking photographs of the sun rather than of us. There was one photographer who had lined up his tripod and to which i had beautifully balanced in the centre hoping to get clicked when at the last moment, he swerved the tripod in the opposite direction to catch a departing runner. Damn!!

20 kms done in 2.00 hours compared to 21 done in 1.59.32 at Vasai Virar marathon. At the Mahim Causeway i met Dr. Sharma whom i had met exactly at the same spot last year also when he had quit the race but this day he was looking strong. My weak zone begins from 21 kms onwards, but the back was holding good so i decided to take it kilometre by kilometre from there onwards. Upto 26 kms i did not realise that i was carrying three sachets of G.U. gel in my pocket and therefore immediately gulped one sachet. Last year the elite marathoners streamed past me by 25 kilometres and this day i had gone past 28 kilometres before they arrived and were gone in a few seconds. I could catch only a few names Kiprop, Kemboi, Ramaala, Tota and the women winner arrived in an absolutely fast pace followed by the others. In between Binning arrived with his Indian contingent. Their drinks station was separately arranged with their water bottles numbered containing their favourite drinks but unfortunately one volunteer fell badly while delivering the bottle to the elite runner. Fortunately the elite runner was not in the lead pack, otherwise it would have been Breaking News of the Day.

On the return leg of the Worli Sea Face i espied the 5.00 hour bus and was completely determined to not allow them to overtake me. From there it was a tough run with the back giving jolts of pain once in a while but i took only a few seconds’ break each time and started again on my journey. On reaching Haji Ali i saw Anand who should have finished the race by then, but he had pain in his right leg. He urged me not to stop and carry on to beat the 5 hour mark which gave me a much needed impetus to give it a mighty push to the finish!!

Pedder Road was conquered in a better shape than last year and so was the rest of the route. Another gel at 32 kms and at 35 kms the cramps started slowly on my right and left calf muscles. But a quick check on my garmin showed that if i did not take much walking breaks i was in with a chance to break the 5 hour barrier. So despite the cramps getting stronger and the calves pulsating more often, I started getting stronger and determined. By the time i turned into M.K. Road the cramps were badly taking a toll. At 41 kms i still had 11 minutes to reach the finish line so i said to myself, damn, come what may, i am going to succeed. At 500 metres to go banner, the right leg was twisting inside even as the left calf muscle was twitching in pain. Fortunately the back was okay and so was the upper body with no pain in the shoulders and arms. At 300 metres i again checked the watch and was sure to reach before 5 hours and in fact predicted would reach by 4.58 and it was 4.58.39 hours when i crossed the finish mat to be hugged by my oldest runner dear friend Veera. It was such a joy to see him at the finish line. So i completed my first sub- 5 hour marathon in another Personal Best time. Year on year i had carved out 36 minutes which co-incidently was the same margin last year as well.   

Few observations – the cramping is getting delayed every year and hopefully in a few years’ time i should not cramp until the 45^th kms mark. So there ends another edition of Mumbai marathon and every year i think this will be my last full marathon, but you bet i shall be back next year as well!!

$100 startup

Just finished reading "$100 start up" by Chris Guillebeau - this guy is a successful serial micro entrepreneur and the book has lots of insights on building a business with very little investment, as low as $100 or even less. All it requires is ideas, a solid product, which people want and which gives value to people. So there should be a want and it should carry value. He takes the reader through the entire process of building a small business with examples from various such micropreneurs who have successfully built their businesses. Its an online world so all it takes is passion with a desire to build business. Some cases are accidental in the sense that people study for one thing, they have passion in another area and it is a cross between choosing a boring day job or pursuing your passion. Highly recommended for would be micro entrepreneurs. 

Running on Empty

Just finished reading Marshall Ulrich's book "Running on Empty" - his story of love, loss and a record setting run across America. This guy is a true ultra marathoner nut in the sense that he has incredible feats under his belt like finishing Badwater Marathon 18 times, winning it four times, and then doing the Badwater route solo i.e. without any team, but only with all his supplies in a cart that weighed 200 pounds, Badwater Quad which is like utter crazy - doing badwater four times back to back. Who can attempt such crazy ultra running feats. His ultra running or rather his running started with the loss of his first wife to cancer when he used to run to escape the depression and thereafter running became a lifelong passion. He has also some mountaineering feats up his sleeve like summiting the tallest summit in each continent and also ascending the Mount Everest.

So it was to be a culmination of his running career by running across America, starting from San francisco to New York a total distance of 3063 miles in 46 days at the age of 57. The previous person to have covered America thus was a 27 year old Frank Gianino about 28 years ago. It involved Marshall running 2 marathons plus 10K every day across terrain and weather that varied from state to state from heat to cold, snow, rains and all. It led to a process of discovery within himself and brought his family close together. The daily travails of running coupled with diet, nutrition, injury, illness, exhaustion, plus the logistics of daily runs are not given in much detail but the reader can very comprehend what it must have taken for the crew to get this runner across America. At the beginning Charlie Engle who ran across the Sahara desert accompanied Marshall during his run but somewhere approximately half way through a fight broke out between the two and Charlie quit and then came to crew and there were recriminations with the original crew which included Marshall's wife. So it is a kind of an eye-opener as to what really transpires in all these multi day ultra marathons. Read it to see whether he manages to break the record of Frank Gianino. Nice read for running fans. There was a movie made out of it “Running America” but could only find a trailer on youtube for it. 

Licensing Regime for restaurants and food business operators

Another regulator has quietly emerged in India without much hulabaloo. It is the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. They have a website FSSAI.

It has got its teeth from the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006. click here for the act. As with all regulators, regulations have been issued one of which is the Food Safety and Standards (Licensing and Registration of Food Businesses) Regulations 2011(click here for regulations) which apparently seeks to introduce some kind of licensing regime in the food industry. One look at the definition of "food business" in the act seems to indicate an all inclusive and pervasive definition - it means any undertaking whether for profit or not, and whether public or private carrying out any of the activities relating to any stage of manufacture, processing, packaging, storage, transportation, distribution of food, import and includes food services, sale of food or food ingredients. This definition brings within its ambit all the restaurants, cafes, canteens, road side eateries, hawker stalls and by including distribution of food in it, also includes malls, kiranas etc.

The Licensing Regulations requires the food business operators to obtain license from the Central/ State licensing authorities - The central licensing authorities come into play only in case of food business specified in the annexure I to the regulations which are basically large food operators, or multi state food business operators or food business operators in railways, ports, airports etc. In all other cases the license has to be taken from the state licensing authority.

A time period of one year from the notification of the regulations was given for obtaining the license. This time period expired on 4th August 2012 and thereafter vide an advisory dated 25th July 2012 this time period was extended by another six months from 5th August 2012. Therefore the six months period expires on 4th February 2013 before which the license from the relevant authority needs to be obtained. Failure to obtain license obviously poses some kind of problem for the business operator and he has to stop conducting his business. click here for the advisory

There are conditions of license which the food business operators have to comply with such as appointing one technical person to supervise the production process, maintain factory's sanitary and hygienic standards and workers' hygiene, place of storage of food items should be separated from privies, urinals, drains etc., temperature control etc. in the premises etc. There are specific sanitary and hygienic standards to be maintained for food business operators, food manufacturers, processors, handlers in schedule 4 of the regulations.

Issue of equity shares under FDI regime -

RBI has vide its notification click here revised the conditions for issue of equity shares under the FDI scheme in government approval route against import of capital goods/ machineries against a proper valuation to exclude the second hand capital goods/ machineries. While earlier circular click here specifically allowed issue of shares even against import of second hand machineries the new notification expressly prohibits it.
 

MUSTRun 10K

Ran the last event of 2012 the MUSTRun 10K in December which was organised by the Bandra H West Federation. They had quite a few sponsors but the inside knowledge was that big sponsors were shying away from the event, probably due to economic recession. Anyway, the event is being held for the 2^nd year and this year they added a half marathon to the 10K which started last year. The route was to pass through the western suburbs of Mumbai, starting from Bandra and going all the way to Santacruz before winding back to Bandra. The start and finish points were at different locations.

The added significance for me was that i had somehow coaxed my daughter Nikita to take part in the 10K race and she had agreed to come for the event. The race was to start at 6.10 a.m. but when we reached the venue we were informed that the start has been delayed by 30 minutes due to late arrival of the volunteers.

That was fine because much shouting, encouraging, back slapping followed with most of the Mumbai runners descending on the venue. The 5Kers started first and then we set off. The race started at Bandra Hill road, went to S.V. Road all the way to Khira Nagar in Santacruz went back to the Link Road all the way back to Bandra via Carter Road Promenade.

Since it was her first race, we started slowly and got into a run-walk-run mode early on itself and kept at it all along the route, walking for exactly 30 seconds and taking off again. i was not sure if Nikita would complete the entire 10K, but she started showing strength and determination to go the distance so i kept on encouraging her all the way. By around 6K i knew that she needed pushing and would definitely make it to the finish line. We kept at it but by 9K or so, she started showing signs of immense fatigue and was repeatedly asking me “how much more to go”. Finally we reached the finish line together in 1.21 hours but there was chaos as usual at the finish line. Later on we came to know that the distance was more by 1.6 kms so we had run 11.6 kms instead of 10 kms. Her 10K timing was 1.15 hours approximately.

The organisation of the race was chaotic with the distances mismatch for both the 10K and 21k categories. But it was a satisfying day for me and Nikita, although she was quite nonchalant about the whole thing and was probably wondering what the fuss was all about!!