Black Thursday

Irrelevantly:

In an unprecedented event, the Sensex (the Bombay Stock Exchange 30 share sensitive Index) fell by a massive 826.38 points on Thursday, the 18^th May 2006. This was the highest ever fall recorded in the history of Indian Stock Market. The financial experts and the newspapers promptly dubbed this day as Black Thursday.

Relevantly:

I first had that itch to try this out when I was a teen-ager. I think it was normal for any teen-ager, influenced by the movies and what that hero [1] had done. Since then, it was something that I have always wanted to do but never had an opportunity to start. Our “out of town, in the middle of nowhere wilderness” college did not provide any such opportunity. When I was in my mid-twenties, I was so immersed at work and at things that bachelors do after work-hours (I’m talking about hanging out with friends at movies and such) that I had no time for anything else. However, the innate desire still remained. Then the thirties came. I was at a place where I had an opportunity next door. I went to that place and checked it out; the place was full of energetic kids. I shied away from that once more, since I did not want to be sticking out as sore-thumb amongst them and with my conditioning, I was pretty sure, I would be; and be an embarrassment to myself and a joke to everyone else around.

Then towards the late 30s, when I was in the US, I finally found a perfect place – it was in the work place and the participants were all around my age; at least they were colleagues. If I was making a fool of myself, it was contained amongst my peers and now I had a safe excuse of being old enough not to be good at it. In fact, some were amazed that I had started at this age! Then I came back to India and was lucky enough to find an arrangement where I could continue the same at my new work place. It was just that I had to switch from one style to another.

Yes, I'm talking about Martial arts - martial arts that everyone got inspired by that one guy [1]. On my return, from being a green belt in Taekwondo, I started again as white-belt in Karate. After 5 years of being at it, I finally passed my black belt test in Dec 04, 2005, in presence of the founder of our style. A lot of people have asked me as to how I manage to balance work and find time to stick to karate training with regularity. My answer to them is always: “that’s why”. I very strongly believe Karate has given me a outlet for de-stressing; so much so that, in spite of the pain that our sensei puts us through, at the end of it, I always feel more lively, inspired and fresh. The tougher the class gets, the better I feel at the end of it. As an added bonus, I’ve been fortunate to find a good and dedicated teacher. Also, I quickly realized Karate alone will not succeed; it has brought in associated paraphernalia – the workout regimen; I found that it is highly impossible to stay through a karate class without being fit; that now has ensured me that I have some kind of workout at least 5-6 days a week.

The 18^th May, 2006 was indeed a personal Black Thursday for me. On this day, it was a culmination of almost a life-long dream and some commitment of six years. I was awarded a Diploma Certificate and my black belt. I was now officially a Shodan (first degree) in Shotokan Karate.

Notes:
[1]: The hero was, ofcourse, Bruce Lee and the movie was “Enter the Dragon”
[2]: If you want to find more about our Sensei and the founder of our style, check out links on this blog site