Happy is the man (in this case, woman) who has acquired the love of walking for its own sake! - W.J. Holland

I did it! I walked all the way from Indiranagar to Jayanagar shopping complex, which is about 14 Kms. I did this on September 12th, my birthday, reached there with sore feet and thoroughly exhausted and I loved every minute of it.

Regular walkers may pooh-pooh the effort and say it isn’t much, but for someone whose only exercise for years involved just pushing my luck, this felt quite liberating. I must say that the walk lasted for about four hours and I can’t really explain what happened in between, but I felt like a different person at the end of the day. Here is my top five lessons learnt that day:

5) To let go of my regular purse. Now, I am used to carrying a mini home in my bag which has everything from common stuff (money) to the not-so-common (like magnets and no, don’t ask me why). It usually weighs a couple of kilos. Walking that far meant carrying a little excuse of a bag slung across my shoulder. Boy! Did I feel like a part of me has been amputated.

4) To not give in to temptation to stop, come what may and especially when auto drivers were falling over themselves every 10 minutes or so, willing to take me wherever I want. WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY WHEN THEY ARE NEEDED THE MOST?

3) To finally understand what it means when people say the last lap is the toughest in a race. I was sooo tempted to take an auto from 3rd block to 4th block which is like, a blink away. Looking back, its quite a strange feeling that I made it so far, yet found it a struggle to walk about five more minutes.

2) To find out that food tastes so much nicer after a long, long, long, long, walk. I have been eating chaat in Jayanagar complex for years, that day it tasted so much more dee-li-cious.

1) To put your finger on what is the one thing that makes the walk really good…. Some may say good company to walk with, some may say good shoes, some may say to have something to munch along, some may say the path that you take, some may say wear comfortable clothing but in my opinion, its great weather that keeps you going. If the weather had played spoilsport, too hot or if it was raining, I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed it all that much

That day, the weather was gloriously perfect. I mean it when I say, I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday gift!!:)