Khub Ladi Mardani..

Not really satisfied with the title of this post but can't really think of anything else.. Anyways here I begin.. So Shaurya's school - TAS had their annual concert on 26th Jan last month. This is the second annual concert of the school since he started Primary in here. Even last year the event was amazing and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the event and how the school management, teaching and non teaching staff handled everything. They actually give you a program schedule as you reach the venue :-D. The more I say about how great the school events are, the more I will miss... Let's just suffice it to say that it continues to improve year on year.

Program Schedule

This year, keeping in sync with the Republic day spirit, the theme was India's heroes. 4 Heroes from the annals of our history were shortlisted for different grades. I loved the performance of each & every grade. Though my son is in Grade 2 and their play was great as well, I absolutely loved the play of Rani Laxmi Bai by Grade 1.

It covered all the major aspects of Rani Laxmi Bai's life and the girls who acted out her character were brilliant. The dialogues were superb, the music hauntingly beautiful, the LED back-screens that were used to show the location of the various scenes were selected with great care and made you feel as if it was being played in that actual place. One of the things that I like best about any TAS event is the music. The music teacher - Savio Sir is amazing. In all the plays, at the end they have curtain call and then all the participating kids come on the stage together and sing a song based on the play. At the end of this play, they sang "Khub ladi Mardani... " The kids sang the entire song.. I have just put a few lyrics of the same below.

The play was so heart touching, I got overwhelmed in quite a few scenes.. believe it or not, I cried in those scenes. :-( And when the kids sang the "Khub ladi mardani" song at the end, tears were continuously streaming down by cheeks; I had to bite my fingers to ensure I don't start sobbing and hiccuping. I dread to imagine what the parents sitting behind and beside me thought of me. Good thing I didn't know them!! Grateful for small mercies ;-p

In a nutshell, a great play and even greater event that was done beautifully under the leadership of their Principal. Mrs Neerurkar Ma'am. (On a side note.. Shaurya says his principal ma'am walks like a Queen.. and she does; guess the effects of having a military family.)

On another side note... I am so looking forward to watching the movie Manikarnika over the weekend!

Aiming for My First 10K

On an impulse, I have registered for a 10 KM Walk/Run at Pune Womens Half Marathon 2019, though it will only be walking, no running for me ;-p. I registered at the end of Dec and at that time I was regular at my morning walks and thought setting a goal of this 10K event will be a good motivator. As it is scheduled in early March, it would give me some 8-9 weeks to prepare.

We had gone to our hometown in Odisha for December Holidays and after a good break of 3 weeks, I fell sick once back home in Pune. It took me a week to recover from viral flu, post which I caught a nasty ear infection. I had to start antibiotics for this and again it took me some own good time to bounce back to normal. 

So now with 4 weeks to the 10K event, I have started on my regular walks again. Though I will not be running, I have started short sprints of 1-2 mins of Slow Run aka Jog followed by 1-2 mins of walk. I do about 5 sets of these. And remaining time, I just concentrate on walking. My plan is to gradually increase the slow runs to 2-4 mins, with 1-2 mins of walk in between. I have not walked 10 km at a go yet, usually its a walk 3-4 kms at one go, but I hope to target to walk 5 km next week and then slowly increase it by another 2-3 kms in the next 2 weeks. I don't know if I should try & walk for 10 km before the event as well. Lets see, my training is evolving as I go. 

I want to be practical in my approach - just aim to complete the 10K event in a decent amount of time. On the D day, I want to complete it and not give up midway owing to fatigue. Wish me luck!