{"id":386,"date":"2007-01-28T04:52:01","date_gmt":"2007-01-28T04:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/naveenbachwani.wordpress.com\/2007\/01\/28\/the-greatest-race-on-earth\/"},"modified":"2007-01-28T04:52:01","modified_gmt":"2007-01-28T04:52:01","slug":"the-greatest-race-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/2007\/01\/the-greatest-race-on-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Race on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

The date was 21 January 2007.\u00a0 The event?\u00a0 The Mumbai Marathon<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The buzz in the city was noticeable\u2026\u00a0 Emails from office colleagues and friends communicating their participation.\u00a0 Newspapers brimming with official route details, traffic diversions in place, history of the marathon, and what have you\u2026\u00a0 Every <\/i>body seemed to be gearing up for the Big Race\u2026<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019ve never been a big fan of the marathon, or any race, for that matter.\u00a0 Even watching it is an unappealing proposition for me, let alone the thought of participating in it!\u00a0 But, 21 January was different.<\/p>\n

It was the day my little daughter\u2019s playschool was going to have its<\/i> Annual Sports Day!<\/p>\n

Pumpkin – my almost-three-year-old – had been training for almost a week.\u00a0 The official communication had said that she was in the \u201cRed\u201d team, which meant that we had to buy her a red t-shirt for the big day.\u00a0 The school was serious about all this stuff.\u00a0 It even designated a day for parents to come by and get their t-shirt purchases approved<\/i>!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every day, Pumpkin would come back from school and want to make some household event or the other into a full-fledged race.\u00a0 It all had to begin with, \u201cOn your marks, Get Set, Go\u201d!\u00a0 The day of the Big Race finally arrived.\u00a0 It was a Sunday, and all the lazy parents had to ensure that they and their little ones are at the track by 9.45 sharp.\u00a0 Needless to say, we were all very excited.\u00a0 Even her dadi<\/i> (grandmother) who usually does not venture out of the house on any occassion, chose to make an exception, that day.<\/p>\n

We took our seats in time – right up in the first row!\u00a0 Armed with a camcorder in one hand, and a digital camera in the other, I was ready to capture every moment of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All the eager parents watched with bated breath as their toddlers participated in one colourful event after another.\u00a0 The Red, Blue, Yellow and Green teams turned out to be more-or-less matched in their heights and age.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pumpkin – and the Red team – took part in two races : 1. Match the Colours, and 2. Match the Shapes.\u00a0 (That\u2019s her in the picture – The second one from the left.)<\/i>\u00a0 The basic idea was to be given a shape\/colour at the start line, run the length of the (25 m) track, find the matching shape\/colour, and run to the judges to register your victory!<\/p>\n

As it turned out, Pumpkin came third in both the races she participated in!\u00a0 In fact, she came second\u2026 in both.\u00a0 She just didn\u2019t get the concept of running to the judges after completing the match, so she delayed that part a little.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anyway, who cares if she came second or third\u2026 our little Pumpkin actually won the first two races she ever participated in!!!\u00a0 As parents, we couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/p>\n

Looking at all the news coverage of the Marathon, the next morning, I was only glad that my priorities were clear.\u00a0 The Greatest Race on Earth, that morning, was the one in our<\/i> neighbourhood<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The date was 21 January 2007. The event? The Mumbai Marathon… The buzz in the city was noticeable… Emails from office colleagues and friends communicating their participation. Newspapers brimming with official route details, traffic diversions in place, history of the marathon, and what have you… Every body seemed to be gearing up for the Big Race…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-wonder-years"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naveen.bachwani.com\/beingdad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}