The Paper Route

Waking up at 5:45 in the morning to go the gym is a terrible idea. That said, I’m doing it. I have found these early mornings bearable – in large part – because of the walk there. Shaking off the stiffness of sleep in the cool and relatively clear, morning air, when most of Bangalore hasn’t yet woken up, is remarkably refreshing.

When I step out, the streets nearest to the apartment are almost completely deserted except for the neighborhood’s exceptionally faithful Muslims who have already prayed at the Mosque. They tend to wear all white, don prayer caps and have red, hennaed beards. Of that group, a select few also wear Kohl, which seems to be devotional black eyeliner. If I have taken a keen interest in their garb, I can only imagine what they think of my t-shirts, white tennis shorts, black mid-calf socks and white Adidas running shoes.

Once onto Brigade Road and past the Johnson Market, the sidewalks are generally clear except for a few sleeping beggars and stray dogs. While I had walked Brigade Road dozens of times before I started my early morning trips to the gym, I didn’t actually “see” the street until the chaos of the day’s traffic was pealed away.

Even though I’m half asleep, I find myself chuckling at wonderfully Indian signs, Jerry-rigged patches of sidewalk (usually precariously placed granite slabs covering holes) and almost unimaginable tangles of wires. Or, I shake my head in disbelief as a single rickshaw will speed by, driver honking his horn at no one but simply out of habit.

My favorite part of the walk comes just a few blocks before the gym. Outside of a Times of India newsstand, paper boys and paper men work furiously to stack and tie bundles of the day’s paper for delivery (everything in India seems to happen a little later). Perhaps it’s because I can’t see a newspaper without thinking of my father, but this moment always stops me in my tracks. It has been repeated in hundreds of thousands of villages, towns and cities the world over, every day, for time immemorial. Some things should never change.