Mumbai on the Run

Mumbai is often described as a city, which is always on its heels. People here seem to be always on their toes. Some of them are running to attend an important meeting, some to meet their lovers, and more often than not, a majority of them are running to catch their daily dose of a ride in the local trains! A fast life is thus what inherently describes Mumbai’s lifestyle the best. Running has become such an important aspect of our daily lives that most of us can’t even remember what a casual slow paced life could be like.

Come 20^th of January this year, and you will see a whole lot of Mumbaikars running on the streets of Mumbai in the wee hours of the morning. For those of you who are still wondering why so many people would be running on the streets on a Sunday morning in winter, 20th of January 2008 marks the 5^th Anniversary of the Mumbai Marathon.

The Mumbai Marathon in many ways represents all good things about Mumbai.

There are a lot of people who would disagree with me when I say that Mumbai is an impartial city. But the fact remains that it is. Which other city would house more than a million people coming from various parts of the country with most of them even living on the streets. Mumbai doesn’t discriminate. Mumbai accepts you as you are. Thus a poor farmer becomes an immortal industrialist and a graduate from Delhi with unconventional looks becomes the biggest entertainer that Bollywood has ever produced. Mumbai thus lives by the line ‘If you can dream it, you can make it.’ Same is the case with the Marathon. The Mumbai Marathon is a great leveler. It doesn’t discriminate. Rahul Bose had once said in an interview that while he was running the marathon and suddenly felt thirsty he took a sip of water from a common man running next to him. In normal circumstances, according to the actor, he would have thought about doing such a thing a 100 times over.

Living in Mumbai takes a lot out of you. It exemplifies Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. This city though accepts everyone, only the one with vision, focus and dedication live through. At the same time, it allows you to be mad! It sets an automatic trigger to make you do things you never did before. If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who has settled in Mumbai in the later years of his life after living most of his life in some other city, village or town. The Marathon too requires a lot of dedication and will power. The fit survive though I have never heard of anyone quitting the marathon halfway. People take themselves right through to the end. Infact an old lady that I knew of ran the marathon on her last day in this world. She supposedly didn’t tell her family before going for the run and they incidentally saw her on TV enthusiastically waving to all the cameras. Her body though couldn’t take the rigor and she passed away the same day. If she hadn’t run that day, maybe she would have never got the chance to do something so wild.

You must have heard about Mumbai’s ‘dabbawallas’ giving lectures on time management in IIMs. Mumbai’s ‘rickshaw wallas’, ‘taxiwalas’, ‘bhelpuri’ uncles and ‘kulfiwalas’ are a characteristic of Mumbai as we know now. Mumbai cannot be imagined without all of them. You will be surprised to know that these same people participate in the Marathon in large numbers. They might not have a lot to give but they do whatever they can. They run for Mumbai. They run for a cause. The Marathon thus best brings out Mumbai’s giving spirit. Mumbai has always been among the first cities to come forward for help when some other city/state needed help. Be it Gujarat which suffered from earthquake tremors or TamilNadu which suffered from Tsunami. It was no surprise thus that when Mumbai was in need be it the time when she suffered from floods or the time when she was hurt by terrorism, Mumbaikars didn’t fear. As soon as the bomb blast happened on the ill-fated day of 7/11, people living in the nearby shanties brought their cots on to the tracks and used them as stretchers. There were queues outside hospitals not only of patients but also of people who wanted to donate their blood to their fellow brothers in need. Mumbaikars don’t look back. Trains were filled with people in the same ‘Mumbaiyya’ style of people hanging out of doors, and sitting on the roofs of the trains the very next day of the blast. This is Mumbai; Mumbai at its energetic best. Mumbai is not scared. She dares to challenge terror in its face. She feels proud of going through such adversities and still standing tough.

Living in Mumbai is thus no less than participating in a race. A race of time where no one comes first, nor does anyone come last. People here are running all the time in one direction-the direction of success. If you stumble, there will be people who will pick you up. If you lose direction, there are guideposts all the way. People who survive the city are winners in themselves. Such is the spirit of Mumbai. So on a Sunday morning in winter, come live the spirit of Mumbai!

- Divya Shetty
divya.infinity@yahoo.com