Ten kms ten kilos and ten K

 Ten kms  ten kilos and ten K - the 3 K's


"Ten kilometer  is not such a big deal, not hard at all. People run that all the time."
"May be not for marathon runners. For me it is.  I am not an athlete."
"You used to say you were a cricketer once. " 
"Did I ?" 
"You know what your problem is? You give up quite easily and you are dead lazy." 
"Certainly not.  This is a boring bet to begin with."
"Not my problem anymore, bro."
This conversation happened a month after the bet was made. So a month has gone by after this conversation (or was it two?).  

I don’t quite remember how I got into this one. I was slowly walked into this trap, I assume. Silly me. And even sillier me !! I got myself into not one, but two such bets.

Inherent human nature ??? Probably.

People who gamble when they lose a bet this could, more or less, be the thought that crosses their mind.

    “I will try my luck one more time. I can make up for my loss and if it goes well I can make some profit as well, who knows “. 

The advice I can give in retrospect, don't mind the loss; just walk away when you have time before you go knee-deep into it. Well I dint know it then, I learned it the hard way. Experience teaches you lot of things.

My friend Nikhil was back in Bangalore. I had reached a month back and was enjoying the cool metro life(meant the climate) until he showed up. 

He was having a realisation that the B-school life and the post training period had taken a toll on him. Life was demanding, work pressure was immense. Like the Kung Fu Panda when he is stressed he eat. Moreover food was tasty and in abundance. He had put on some extra kilos.  And he was committed to getting back to where he actually was a couple of years back. All that we heard during his first few days in Blore was ‘calories’. The rest of the time was spent in several bicycle shops across blore studying international bicycle models and its features.  He didn’t go alone, dragged us, me and Ojas, our friend with him.  We went bicycle hunting in a couple of shops in Madivala where we stayed, then went to Decathlon.  If you haven’t already heard, Decathlon is a major French sporting goods chain store, with stores located throughout the world. They got a couple of stores in Blore as well.  I must say it was an amazing experience, everyone must go there once. We had spent a whole evening there.

This is how it started: we were coming back from Decathlon; I told him that he would stop cycling within a month. He took it as a call for a bet.

Oh I didn’t see it coming, should have.

 This is where it ended: If he sheds 10 kilos in 5 months, I should pay him 10K else he would pay me the same.  And the second bet? What can I say, totally my foolishness, nothing else.  Like I said earlier it is an inherent human nature to overdo, or is certainly mine. I tried to compensate for my loss and ended up in other. New bet: Within the next five months I have to run 10kms at a stretch. If successful, I can buy books  worth 10k and he will pay for it or else I will have to do the same for him. Oja, the bet commissioner sealed the deal.

You never challenge a guy who is seriously determined to do something, say to lose weight.  My roommate Chathan comes up with such declarations every now and then, rigorously follows  it for a week or so, lose couple of kilos in the process (mostly due to loose motion over eating on a cheat day), claims he can shed weight whenever and however he wants and goes back to his eating spree. Prior experience being this, I didn’t take Nikhil very seriously and inadvertently gave him motivation to do it. These management guys you know, when they see a window of opportunity they grab it and grab it with both hands.  He takes Joker’s ‘when you are good at something never do it for free’ theory quite seriously and was experimenting it on me.  

 There are two ways to go about this.

For the love of books I can try running.  Or I can tempt him to eat more.  Couple of months have gone by.  I am yet to run 10 meters.  And about plan B,  I tried buying him fat filled commodities. But he didn't fall for my trick.  

There is even a plan C.  Not to talk about this anymore. Be indifferent to his calorie theories and react as if you don’t care. He may lose the motivation or even forget about the bet. 

Who knows? 


P.S. Nothing happened, mutual understanding it was. We don't talk about it anymore. The bet commissioner, now and then, laments about wasting a golden opportunity. He says he had a gut feeling that both of us wouldn't complete our respective bets. He should have had made a bet, he feels.