The Diary Of Charles P. Chinnappa, Bengaluru 2071

  It is commonly said by those who do not know better that the first stage of the Novina Daari has got a lot easier over the years; this time around, the organisers (most probably out of spite) have started the event with a particularly tricky section. I curse myself for not checking the route markers and local weather forecast as I wait at the start line, nervously checking if my participant’s bib is stuck on properly. Finishing the entire thing is a statistical impossibility at my age, but I am determined to try. The ND is by far the most difficult, gruelling endurance pedestrianism race on planet Earth; a three-week, 320-kilometre traversal of Bengaluru on foot. With danger at every intersection, hundreds of technically demanding sections requiring extreme caution, and held in the middle of the monsoons, the race’s completion rate is low. Last year, only half the total number of participants staggered across the finish line; an overflowing drain on day eight had wiped out over ...

  Even though Kempe Gowda the First died about five hundred years before this rocket station was opened to the public, his legacy remains. In fact, as the first planner of the city of Bengaluru, he has many a statue erected in his memory. I heard that the statues should technically be rotating constantly as he is still turning in his grave; this is a popular joke amongst those who have called this city home for an extended period of time. A person told me, “The beauty of the joke is that you understand it by just living here, so we don’t bother explaining it.” I don’t think I get it just yet. India has been relatively reluctant to use rockets for short-distance travel, but some startup here (the word ‘unicorn’ is almost a slur these days) convinced the government to try it about six years ago, and now the paying public has a shiny new launchpad to use. I decide to use the per diem I have allocated to myself to take a little round trip to New Delhi and back; the map at the ticket co...