It’s just walking, just slightly quicker

If the process of getting operated and then being told that the recovery would take a while wasn’t bad enough, the terrible people of Moolchand Hospital and Aditya Birla Health Insurance ensured that the discharge process was worse. I was kept waiting without food or medicines and in agonizing pain for hours for no reason! Well, they had a reason, but it made little sense – apparently my insurance claim hadn’t been approved and despite me repeatedly telling them that it was alright, and I could just pay for now, they would just not relent. 

I was hurt, sad, and now angry – angry at the person on the help desk, angry at insurance company, angry at the compounder who had refused to give me painkillers – but most importantly angry at myself for being callous and landing myself in a position like this. 

The self-hatred got worse over the next week – and if it had not been for my best friend’s marriage, I wouldn’t have left my room which had seen little light in that week. As I tried to conduct a hastily prepared quiz there though, I felt strangely good – almost happy. There are few things which have that effect on me – quizzing was one, running was the other and the helplessness of not being able to indulge in the latter was eating me up. 

As I made my way back to home that night, I figured sulking won’t get me up and running – I had to get myself to try and get better and since the hospital had scarred me, I was averse to re-visiting the place for physiotherapy or any sort of consultation. It was well past two in the morning then, but I decided to let go of any manners and texted Santosh bhaiya who is a personal trainer and used to work at a gym which I used to sporadically visit till before the pandemic. He responded the next morning, and for the next 35 days, under his tutelage, I would work on getting my knee to work every day for two hours. 

Not one day went past without this workout – I realized all I needed was movement in some form and that would be enough to brighten my day. As I reached Indonesia for a four-week work trip, I could now slowly walk unsupported and had managed to build a substantial amount of strength in the injured knee. I met with a German doctor there who specialized in injuries and post-surgery rehab of the kind I had suffered, and he completely changed the way I had perceived the next months to be. I told him I was advised not to run for 6 months and that I couldn’t run at my old pace for at least two years – he just looked at me and laughed and said that’s not true at all. In fact, I should have started slow jogging already!

Slightly alarmed but hugely happy, I decided to go for a run on a synthetic track the next morning – one step after the other, each taken with a lot of caution followed and thirty-nine minutes later, I had managed to jog roughly twelve laps of the track and finish a five-kilometer jog. I was overjoyed – took selfies around that place and basically behaved like a kid who had just won an inter-house trophy in his school! This was indeed possible – I needn’t be bedridden for as long as I was initially advised too! 

As I got back to Delhi, to commemorate seventy-five days of surgery, on December 10, I ran a ten-kilometer race in seventy-five minutes! It seemed oddly satisfying – the thrill of getting a medal again, the joy of being spurred on by absolute strangers and to be able to just retain some normalcy, this felt nice! 

I started setting mini goals for myself and by the time I landed in Qatar for another work trip on January 2, I was determined to run fifty kilometers every week again. And so, I went every morning, up and down this tartan track along the corniche next to the Persian Gulf there – it was joyful, it was relieving but most importantly it was calming. Here was a physical activity which made me feel mentally sane – I used to talk to myself growing up when I used to be depressed; that calmed me down. I was my own therapist and strangely even though I do visit one now, this seemed extremely therapeutic; the joy of sweat dripping down the neck, the heart racing, blood pumping – all weirdly familiar and yet unfamiliar feelings. 

Soon enough, after getting back from Qatar, and on 150 days since my surgery, I lined up for the half marathon in Delhi’s Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium – it was cold, I had fever, I felt dehydrated but my knee and my leg didn’t ache at all – there was a sense of jubilation as I finished thus. I called Santosh bhaiya – thanked him again for all those workouts which I am sure seemed stupid and odd to me, but if he had not come over every day and helped me, it’s unlikely I would have done anything beyond sulking all day!

As I write this, it’s been eight months since the surgery - I still don’t manage to run at paces that I used to before that accident and yet I feel happier – I am more content, more disciplined and I appreciate running as an indulgence. 

It has given me more joy and solace than I had imagined it could – “it’s just walking, just slightly quicker”, that’s how papa had introduced me to this obsession – well, it's turned out to be a lot more!