A drive thru the city even before the first rays of sun has touched the ground will show you that the number of fitness freaks has increased 10 fold in the past couple of years. Every family seems to have at least one member on the roads, walking their way to a fit and healthy life. And the number just keeps increasing day by day. Says Kishan Bangera, a regular walker at the Mangala stadium in the evenings “the sedentary lifestyle and most of the white collared jobs are contributing to amassing of huge reserves of fat around the body and there is no other way to shed it other than by a good walk”
Says Anita Lobo a lecturer “most of us are now living in apartments and high rises which even if equipped with gyms do not have open spaces. Previously our houses used to have large backyards and gardens and working in these gardens or gardening used to give quite a lot of exercise.” Ganesh a businessman says “My morning walk at the beach is also my ‘thinking time’. The time of day when I can be with my thoughts, and plan for the day ahead,”
Who said morning walks are boring? Ask a few morning walkers who have formed their own cliques be it the evening stadium Gang, the mission compound walkers, the Kadri Park walkers’ et al. Apart from making the morning walks entertaining, they discuss anything under the sun from business to solutions to household problems. Daily walking does brings a sense of routine, seeing the same faces everyday produces its own camaraderie, even if one is not carrying these relationships any further.
The Vintage Book of Walking (ISBN-13: 978-0099276678) which is a comprehensive anthology on the topic of walking; a mix of fiction and non-fiction, poetry and drama, a foreword by Richard Holmes says “Because every walk becomes some sort of story, whether a mere anecdotal dawdle round the block, or an entire heroic epic across a continent.” No wonder another walker with a roving eye says “It is said that every morning walk becomes some sort of an interesting affair admiring the ladies ahead but sadly can’t talk to them, just look at them with a benevolent eye!”
And it’s not just the people who are in the so called twilight years of their lives, who are walking. The teens, the youth are walking too. Says Anthea an evening walker “walking has helped me reduce weight, as well as gives me a good night sleep. Gymming no doubt is a better way to burn off fat, but then once the body is toned you cannot quit gymming, you start putting it on in the wrong places”.
For long the citizens had been cribbing that there is no proper walking track in Mangalore until some months back when a few good spirited citizens came forward to fabricate barricades to be placed at the entrances of the Kadri Park road to prevent the walkers from being run over by speeding motorists. Now a walker says “I used to come for walking to relax and to forget my tensions. And here there was some other tension as to whether I would go back home in one piece. Now that tension is gone and I can again walk in peace.”
Don’t let the thought of crowded streets and dirty paths deter you from walking. If you search and persist, you will be able to create a route that suits you, and take up this wonderful form of exercise. And like Paul Dudley White once said “A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world.” Way to go Mangaloreans…Happy walking!
Author: Sunil Gonsalves- Mangalore