Discovery

Today I had a 'apple-falling-on-my-head' moment. I had never spoken to Newton to find out how he had felt when he had the original moment but I guess he must have felt just the same as what I felt today. Ok, since his came first, I should say I felt just the same as what he probably had felt. I am not talking about the pain in the head when the apple made contact with his cranium. Rather I am talking about his feeling after discovering that he is a magnetic material, the earth is a magnet, hence he is attracted to the earth. Or some such thing. I only know that he called it gravitation and the apple was responsible somehow. And now I have that same feeling.

First I got a hurt back, then I got lazy, finally I got a bad cold and before I knew it, it had been a fortnight since the last time the tread mill felt the pounding of my feet. Today I woke up to a clogged nose and to this gym reality. I couldn't do anything about the nose but I could about the gym and decided to re-introduce myself to the tread mill. I kept telling myself that I was going back because I wanted to get fit and all that though deep down I knew why I was really going back. After all, I had paid good money for the gym membership and I had to at least try and make that money count! So there I was, in the gym, after a hiatus of a fortnight. The stint on the tread mill, surprisingly, wasn't as bad as I had imagined it would be. I managed my regular distance with just a few more huffs and puffs than I remember using previously but that wasn't something to make me look bad.

That was when the 'apple...' moment happened. I had finished my jogging and was admiring the look of the tread mill. The tread mill had this ‘wet finish’ look because I apparently resemble a fountain when I am jogging, spraying sweat all over the place. No wonder I never have anyone using the machines next to mine when I jog. Anyway, as I stood there admiring my 'sweaty' work I suddenly realized that I was breathing properly though both my nostrils. Where moments before I was breathing through my mouth because not more than a pin-hole of free space was available in my nostrils, I was now doing full-bore, two-barreled breathing. My nose, that had been clogged for the past three days like the overflowing sewage pipes in my home town, was now functioning the way it was designed to function. And I discovered that the un-clogging had happened because of my jogging. This discovery might not have the same gravity as Gravitation but it's still my discovery and I'm proud of it. I have always been a little skeptical when reading about great discoveries made in the most unlikely of places but given my own experience today, I guess I am now ready to believe.

Talking about unlikely places to make a discovery, I really thank God that my unlikely place happened to be the gym and not the bath tub. Otherwise, I would probably have had a 'Eureka' moment and would have been behind bars right now, charged with indecent exposure, sexual harassment and spreading fear in the general public by acting in a scary manner!