Prashant Ivaturi

  Fifth year behind the mic at NMDC Hyderabad Marathon. Here is what I keep seeing. Most people in Hyderabad are asleep at 4 AM. I am usually wide awake. And I have come to believe that 3 or 4 AM might be the best time to see this city. Not from a rooftop. Not from a fancy restaurant. Not even from the driver's seat. From a stage. Every year, as the NMDC Hyderabad Marathon gets closer, I find myself looking forward to something that has little to do with the race itself. I look forward to watching Hyderabad wake up. The 2026 edition is on August 29 and 30, with the marathon and half marathon taking place on Sunday, August 30. But long before the sun comes up, something remarkable is already happening. Volunteers are arriving. Police officers are taking their positions. Medical teams are getting ready. Pacers are preparing. Organisers are checking the last details. And then, slowly, the runners begin to appear. Thousands of them. You see sponsors, organizers, volunteers, runners, l...

What happens when the person who spends hours lifting everyone else up decides to find out whether he can lift himself up too? There is a moment I return to often. It is 5:28 AM. The half marathon wave is two minutes from flag off. I am on stage, microphone in hand, doing what I have been doing since 3:30 in the morning - holding the crowd, managing the energy, making thousands of people feel ready for what they are about to do. And then I hand the mic to my stage coordinator, step to the edge of the stage, and jump down into the crowd. I pin on my bib. Lace up my shoes. And join the runners.  Some of them look at me. Then look again. A few are astonished. Some recognise me and cannot quite believe what they are seeing. And somewhere behind me, as I cross the start line, the organising team sends me off with a huge round of cheers. How this decision came to be I had originally planned to run the full marathon that day. When I took up the anchoring role for the NMDC Hyde...

A journey across genres, languages, decades, and one very long commute in Chicago. Every morning of my childhood began the same way. More so on weekends.  My father would play MS Subbulakshmi's Suprabhatam, or Balamuralikrishna's Pancharatna Krithis, or MS Rama Rao's Hanuman Chalisa. The house would fill with Carnatic music before the day had properly begun. I did not know it then, but my ear was being trained. The commute that became a classroom My school was some twenty kilometres away from home in Hazaribagh, Bihar. I travelled by whatever was available. Private buses. Trucks. Matadors. Whichever vehicle was heading in the right direction. The drivers played Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan. Contemporary Bollywood at full volume, crackling through old speakers on dusty roads. I listened to every song. When I came home, my mother would have Kishore Kumar or Mohammed Rafi playing. Old classics. Guide. CID. Barsaat. The golden era of Hindi film music, filling the after...