My trip to India is coming to an end and even though I am here almost every three months I observe many interesting things happening around me and sometimes happening to me. I thought I would share some of these experiences to the group. Let me start off with my first experience related to street dogs and running in Bangalore. 

As some of you know I recently got injured from running in Ottawa. The injury is not a big deal and I am (or shall we say – I was) slowly recovering. I have always been fond of running in Bangalore and since I  am up in the morning early due to mild jet lag, I find morning jog in a nearby park as a best way to start my day. Those of us who have grown up in India know that dogs are usually in a bad mood early in the morning . Usually they love to bark and gang up on you if you end up waking them up from their sleep. I would like to think that I am used to the street dogs, but every time I go for a run the heart rate monitor strapped to me tells a different story. The heart rate shoots up rapidly and then goes down to normal as I pass by the dogs. Still there hasn’t been a need to be overly worried. This time the story took a different turn. I started rather late one day for my run and I know that there is a group of three dogs who are near the park who like to bark at me every time I pass them. Since it was late in the morning with a bit of traffic around I wasn’t worried a bit. I was wearing my new Nike running shirt which is bright yellow and on it says in big words – Run Easy. I was feeling good since my feet was feeling better. I also thought I was looking rather cool and as I passed these dogs I gave them a casual glance. The dogs had a different agenda this time. I am not sure whether it was the bright yellow or they didn’t like the “Run Easy” motto or maybe they didn’t like the fact that I wasn’t threatened this time, but anyways all three decide to bark and run at me with full speed as I passed them. I know that some of you would say that you should have stopped and the dogs would have stopped, but I could tell that I had pissed off these three for some reason. In three seconds flat, my easy run turned into a full force sprint on the streets of Bangalore. The people and traffic around me had quite a showing as I sprinted through traffic lights without waiting for oncoming traffic. I think I must have come close to breaking national 50 m speed record for sure. The three dogs followed me like I have never seen any dogs do, but believe it not, I managed to gain ground on them after two lights. By the time I was clear I thought I was going to die of heart attack. After I caught my breath, I slowly crawled to the park and  jogged around for couple of loops. I was dead tired, but also furious that these dogs got the better of me. If you think I would have learned my lesson from this experience you don’t know me. I am guy who cut his finger trying to open a drain with finger and got three stitches. A year later I thought how could I cut my finger and tried to open the same drain with same finger and got the same nasty cut. So as crazy as it may sound, I thought I am going to run back the same way. Now I must say I did get a little smarter from experience and decided to carry two big rocks in my hand. I was sure the rocks would do the trick. As I am coming back to the point where the three maniacs dog were situated before, I was almost walking. As I came close, I saw only one dog and he was sleeping. I carefully went past him and kept a close eye on him. He didn’t even move – I thought I got the stupid dog tired. He should have known that he was challenging with a Marathoner wanna be. After I went past a few meters I thought I was in clear and I had won the mental battle as well. Oh, how wrong was I. Suddenly from nowhere the two missing dogs come in front of me and one that was sleeping started the attack on me from back. It is almost like they had some military knowledge and they setup a trap for me. I froze first and forgot the fact that I had rocks in my hand. I ran  like crazy again and I am pretty sure I broke the 50m record once again in a span of one hour. Anyways, my foot is busted again so I can’t run, but be assured that I will be training hard and challenge the mighty dogs again in my next trip.