Dear Milind Soman

Dear Milind Soman,

Am sure you are surprised as to why am I writing an open letter to you, well, I am writing this letter on behalf of hundreds of women who sacrificed their Sunday morning sleep and joined you in Pinkathon at Mumbai on 18th December 2016. Sunday is not any other day for us. We struggle for rest of the days of the week with our eyes on one Sunday. It’s not just rest day for us it’s also a preparatory day for the forthcoming week and still hundreds of us were there at 5 am at Bandra Kurla complex on 18th December. What made us be there? What made us overcome practical difficulties of reaching BKC early morning? We all were there because of love and respect that we have for you, to be precise for your commitment to fitness. You have been a heartthrob for thousands since your entry in the alluring world of modeling many years back. And your charm and charisma continues. It’s that charisma which brought us all to BKC with a will to run 3, 5 and even 10 kms. What a wave of enthusiasm! We dressed in pink and white signature T shirts of Pinkathon and some rare ones in normal running attire. We all in best of our running shoes, some of us even equipped with fitness gadgets. Many of us eager to have a glimpse of you and many hopeful of even having a photo-op with you! lolz! 

        What bound us all together is a passion and confidence that we too can run. There is no dearth of marathons in Mumbai but those marathons scare me. Ladies like me are kind of awestruck by those marathons. We are inhibited by the professionalism of runners in those marathons. Why? our daily life is a run, it’s a struggle, we run behind our naughty kids, we run to catch public transport, we run behind targets and we run behind deadlines, where is a time for us to run on the ground? But we too want to run for fun; we too want to feel good that we can run, we too want to have some "me" time. And you gave us that! 

               
Am sure critics of Pinkathon are in abundance! I am sure many think it to be girly event. Probably professional and even amateur marathoners don't even consider it to be marathon! So what? I say, so what? It makes no difference to us. What matters is the ecstasy we felt at the finish line. What matters is the confidence that we too can run! And we didn't run with long faces or with an eye on our digital clocks. We ran with confidence, we ran with enthusiasm. We ran with the best of our makeup on our faces! We looked at shoes, hairstyle of our fellow runners! We clicked photos even while running! But we ran! We ran to the best of our abilities! We did offload baggage of our families for sometime and ran! We did sacrifice our Sunday morning sleep but we were glad that we did it. One Sunday morning differently spent! One Sunday morning makes us aware about our own individual existence. One Sunday run gave us the time that we very much need for ourselves, time away from our own family, time away from daily chores, time away from never ending responsibilities, time away from nagging expectations.... Thank you for making us truly happy, thank you for injecting confidence among us. Whether we run further marathons or not is not what matters. What matters is the experience- different and pleasant. What matters is the energy that it gave us to continue performing a role of Superwoman…. thank you indeed.....