Eventrac News

Running with Adhanarand

24 Jul, 2024 12:29 By:

About six months ago, I was browsing one of the many bookshelves in Totnes, when I chanced upon a book called Running With Kenyans. The author, who seemed to have a Scandinavian/Hindu name but apparently lived in Devon, had written about two subjects which remained close to my heart: Running and Africa. Making sideways eye contact with the cashier,who seemed resigned to his fate, overseeing amateur browsers like me, I continued to read, getting sucked in to the time vortex that links present passions with past networks of chance experience, I was up and running backwards through the pages, to the time I spent in Kenya as an 18 year-old.

Green as a new born cub scout, pulse throbbing with the immediacy of an African savannah and the mayhem of Nairobi. The words offered tendrils back to Eldoret, and St Patricks and the red earthed, potholed roads and the running stick men, whose fat smiles alone, seemed to offer balast to keep them upright and their warmth and hospitality and modesty. Thirty minutes later, I looked up and the cashier was waiting with keys in hand to lock up.

As I left the shop, I was once more running but this time forwards in my mind. Totnes is a town where chance and coincidence seems to converge much quicker than other places I have lived. I knew it was only a matter of time before I met the author of these words. And a month later it materialised. I received a call from a man whose name I could not pronounce without shearing a syllable or two. He wanted to go wild running and asked if we could meet up. The result is this article, which appeared in today’s Guardian newspaper. Read on…