After being subject to the lavish hospitality of the firm that happened to recruit me during campus placements for two days, Sunday morning brought my feet back on the ground. I came back from a family function late Saturday evening to be told by Onkar that he managed to get two wild card registrations for the 'Dream Run' in the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon. The fatass sophomore and he were walking back after playing squash when they bumped into a couple of women working for Vidya (the in-house NGO in IITB) who announced their willingness to dispense with two Marathon registrations if there were willing takers. My friends happily came back with one bib each and told me about it. When a desire to participate arose in my heart, it was amicably decided that fatass would wait until next year and I would run in his place.
We were told to report to main gate at 6 in the morning. Onkar woke me up in time and we took an early morning hop to our pick-up point. In about ten minutes the place was swarming with children from the NGO and the two of us found ourselves pinning the registration bibs on the t-shirts of little kiddos and kiddies. A red herring by the NGO women indeed :)! Soon we were greeted by the Director's wife (who is by far the scariest looking woman in the world after the Hindu Goddesses Kali and Durga) and she requested us to load food packets and drinking water bottle cartons from her attic to the transport buses. A request from a formidable woman such as her was a command from the highest order and I found myself meekly doing the chores. All the while the only thing I hoped for was for Providence to leave one food packet for the least my empty stomach deserved after the voluntary labor was a humble ration of cheese sandwich and slice cake.
My rising fears were soon alleviated we pushed off to Azad Maidan with Onkar and me finding ourselves in positions of responsibility over the adolescents. I savored whatever was in the food packet balancing myself on the edge of a seat which was barely enough to support one half of one of my buttocks. The bus was stuffed you see! But we made it through and reached our destination in good time. Outside the VT station we got off the bus and walked the kids to the magnificent Oval Maidan. En route to the grounds, my ears were relishing the long forgotten platitudes that one gets to hear from school masters and school teachers - "Walk neatly in groups of six, single file", "Don't leave your partner's hand", "Don't chit chat among yourselves, pay attention to me" and the sorts. There were other NGOs walking by and Onkar and I imagined what would happen if one NGO started sledging and abusing the other. In a city of contradictions, anything is possible!
We finally reached the Maidan to find a full-feldged mela out there. The roads were cordoned (Mumbai Marathon is now a big deal backed by a lot of corporate sponsorship, celebrity participation and razzmatazz. I remember a friend reminiscing his experience of the Bangalore marathon with much disdain especially moments when he had to spot jog at the traffic signal as the organisers did not bother to stop vehicular traffic during the time of the run) by the police but they were filled with large and small groups fighting for a cause (or atleast to try and make as much a deal out of it with whatever time a Sunday morning of festivities could offer), families where daddy strongest has made it clear that this is going to be a yearly ritual for the family, cliques of youngsters who get an excuse to purchase a brand new nike/adidas/reebok, groups of senior citizens who believe that it is necessary to prove the non-existence of any correlation between age and mileage, people who feel it is necessary to participate in order to align one's identity with that of the city and people like me who just happened to be there because they got a chance to do so. Amidst all this hustle and bustle, one could notice that the poor animals (stray dogs, cats, crows and pigeons) were pretty disillusioned and were wondering what the hell is wrong with this city.
Finally the run commenced around 9:30 am from the BMC and I judiciously jogged the first half (for whatever it was worth). I was constantly being taken over by faster, more energetic ones and I overtook a few gasping for their breath. On my right I could see the special lanes where the participants of the half and the full marathons ran. All along the road, there were people cheering us (for reasons I cannot think of)- people offering mineral water bottles to the fatigued, ad hoc bands playing songs from RDB with a hope to channel the athleticism in the unfit and housewives in their nighties staring at us with deep consternation from the verandas of the residential buildings along Marine drive. Yes, the marathon proceeded from CST to Churchgate; touching Nariman point and tracing the a part of the queen's necklace all the way to Marine Lines. Everyone who was there (apart from the participants) was there because she or he had nothing better to do that morning but then once in place, most people played their role well - be it of a cheerleader, waterboy, photographer or spectator.
The city changes in seconds. It mutates and it mutates through its people. I could already see the last vestiges of the day disappearing as I neared the end of the finish line. As I did that, quite a few images came to my mind. There are many that talk about the resilience of the city, its character, some talk about its growing decadence (read the recent molestation case) and some say it is repeating the mistakes of the west. But among these characteristics, is that of fickleness and amnesia. The city forgets too soon for good and for the bad but the skeletons invariably remain in the closet. I quote a verse from a compendium of poems on Bombay that I read recently.
We were told to report to main gate at 6 in the morning. Onkar woke me up in time and we took an early morning hop to our pick-up point. In about ten minutes the place was swarming with children from the NGO and the two of us found ourselves pinning the registration bibs on the t-shirts of little kiddos and kiddies. A red herring by the NGO women indeed :)! Soon we were greeted by the Director's wife (who is by far the scariest looking woman in the world after the Hindu Goddesses Kali and Durga) and she requested us to load food packets and drinking water bottle cartons from her attic to the transport buses. A request from a formidable woman such as her was a command from the highest order and I found myself meekly doing the chores. All the while the only thing I hoped for was for Providence to leave one food packet for the least my empty stomach deserved after the voluntary labor was a humble ration of cheese sandwich and slice cake.
My rising fears were soon alleviated we pushed off to Azad Maidan with Onkar and me finding ourselves in positions of responsibility over the adolescents. I savored whatever was in the food packet balancing myself on the edge of a seat which was barely enough to support one half of one of my buttocks. The bus was stuffed you see! But we made it through and reached our destination in good time. Outside the VT station we got off the bus and walked the kids to the magnificent Oval Maidan. En route to the grounds, my ears were relishing the long forgotten platitudes that one gets to hear from school masters and school teachers - "Walk neatly in groups of six, single file", "Don't leave your partner's hand", "Don't chit chat among yourselves, pay attention to me" and the sorts. There were other NGOs walking by and Onkar and I imagined what would happen if one NGO started sledging and abusing the other. In a city of contradictions, anything is possible!
We finally reached the Maidan to find a full-feldged mela out there. The roads were cordoned (Mumbai Marathon is now a big deal backed by a lot of corporate sponsorship, celebrity participation and razzmatazz. I remember a friend reminiscing his experience of the Bangalore marathon with much disdain especially moments when he had to spot jog at the traffic signal as the organisers did not bother to stop vehicular traffic during the time of the run) by the police but they were filled with large and small groups fighting for a cause (or atleast to try and make as much a deal out of it with whatever time a Sunday morning of festivities could offer), families where daddy strongest has made it clear that this is going to be a yearly ritual for the family, cliques of youngsters who get an excuse to purchase a brand new nike/adidas/reebok, groups of senior citizens who believe that it is necessary to prove the non-existence of any correlation between age and mileage, people who feel it is necessary to participate in order to align one's identity with that of the city and people like me who just happened to be there because they got a chance to do so. Amidst all this hustle and bustle, one could notice that the poor animals (stray dogs, cats, crows and pigeons) were pretty disillusioned and were wondering what the hell is wrong with this city.
Finally the run commenced around 9:30 am from the BMC and I judiciously jogged the first half (for whatever it was worth). I was constantly being taken over by faster, more energetic ones and I overtook a few gasping for their breath. On my right I could see the special lanes where the participants of the half and the full marathons ran. All along the road, there were people cheering us (for reasons I cannot think of)- people offering mineral water bottles to the fatigued, ad hoc bands playing songs from RDB with a hope to channel the athleticism in the unfit and housewives in their nighties staring at us with deep consternation from the verandas of the residential buildings along Marine drive. Yes, the marathon proceeded from CST to Churchgate; touching Nariman point and tracing the a part of the queen's necklace all the way to Marine Lines. Everyone who was there (apart from the participants) was there because she or he had nothing better to do that morning but then once in place, most people played their role well - be it of a cheerleader, waterboy, photographer or spectator.
The city changes in seconds. It mutates and it mutates through its people. I could already see the last vestiges of the day disappearing as I neared the end of the finish line. As I did that, quite a few images came to my mind. There are many that talk about the resilience of the city, its character, some talk about its growing decadence (read the recent molestation case) and some say it is repeating the mistakes of the west. But among these characteristics, is that of fickleness and amnesia. The city forgets too soon for good and for the bad but the skeletons invariably remain in the closet. I quote a verse from a compendium of poems on Bombay that I read recently.
Bright and tempting breezes
flow across the island,
separating past from the future;
then the air is still again
as I sleep the sleep of ignorance.
Finally we came back to Azad Maidan where I took a beeline for CST. I walked through the last minutes of fanfare through the promenades, savoring the remains of the day before the streets of south Bombay get back their usual vehicular flux. After meeting Fubu and Raj at McDonalds and sharing a tasty cheese pav bhaji, I walked to Sunderbhai Hall for the Strand Book fare. The usual spendthrift in me came alive and I bought Rs. 2000 worth of some awesome books- The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, The Devil's Chaplain by Richard Dawkins, Why is Sex fun? by Jared Diamond, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace by Gore Vidal include some of them. I don't know when I am going to read them. But I will soon, probably. Optimism is something that Bombay has plenty to offer whenever there isn't any need for it.
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