Interesting Races in Interesting Places: Journey to Mumbai

Scott C

Welcome to Mumbai

I arrived in Mumbai, India one day earlier than scheduled after Air India agreed to reschedule my flight, as yet another heavy snowfall was forecast for NYC. After a 14-hour flight I landed in New Delhi, changed planes and arrived in Mumbai at nine o’clock at night. Getting into a taxi, my first images of Mumbai were seeing many cars, motorbikes and taxi rickshaws all relentlessly honking their horns and constantly jockeying for an opening in an ever-present display of aggressive driving that made traffic in NYC seem orderly and filled with etiquette. The air was both sweet and smoky from small fires lit by those who lived on the roadside trying to keep warm in the cool Mumbai winter evening. Stray dogs were all about, with the occasional cow or oxen standing idle within inches of the traffic, though seemingly oblivious to the constant noise. The images of poverty and congestion that I had imagined were suddenly quite real. After nearly twenty hours of traveling more than halfway around the world, I was now in India a country that has always held my fascination and my curiosity.

Scott C (center in shorts) in Mumbai, India

My road to arriving in Mumbai in the middle of January began three years ago when I accepted a coaching position for a relatively young charity called Lend-A-Hand India (LAHI).  LAHI was founded in 2003 by Raj Gilda and his wife Sunanda Mane, who moved to NYC from Mumbai to attend school in the early nineties. Though they are based on NYC’s upper west side, they spend a great deal of time traveling back and forth to develop and oversee LAHI’s operations. Raj recently decided the time was right to take a huge risk as he left Citigroup in NYC after a decade of employment to devote his life full-time to engineer the next phase of the development of LAHI and its growth.

There are 36 million unemployed people in India. Of these, 24 million live in villages and a substantial number leave for cities in search of jobs. One of the reasons for unemployment among youth is the significant disconnect between the school education and the skills needed in the job market.

Lend-A-Hand India’s program innovation spurs entrepreneurship and creates jobs by making life and practical job skills training universally available in the government aided high schools, primarily in rural India. Currently covering 10,000 young girls and boys from three states in India.  They take the philosophy of "learning by doing" and "work ethics and culture" to rural populations and assimilate them with the ongoing economic change in India.

With the proliferation of various charities worldwide that have directed their fundraising efforts through individuals who are attracted towards a particular cause and raise funding for that cause through training for a marathon, a half marathon or a triathlon, LAHI has established its Run For A Dream program that offers those wishing to train for popular races such as the NYC marathon the opportunity to raise money and in exchange provide both online and in person training, a racing singlet, cap and t-shirt, social opportunities such as happy hours, a chocolate festival, nutritional lectures, shopping opportunities and more.

While the NYC marathon remains a popular event, LAHI also has expanded its race selections which now include the NYC Half Marathon, the Hamptons Marathon, and most recently the Mumbai Marathon.

After three years of success and increasing growth in the Run For A Dream program, Raj and Sunanda invited me to come to India to see first-hand the work they have created, to run the Mumbai Marathon, to visit some of the schools where LAHI offers Project Swadheen (meaning self-motivated), which provides vocational training and career guidance to young boys and girls from urban and rural communities in pre-identified trades.

The Mumbai Marathon

My goal in traveling to India was to enjoy the Mumbai Marathon and travel to and visit these rural schools where I would talk about and teach running and the relationship to running and learning skill sets, and also put on races among the kids 14-16 years of age.

With three days to acclimate to the inevitable jet lag and a 10.5 hour time difference between NYC and India as well as the heat of Mumbai, I awoke at 3 AM on Sunday morning for the drive to the start of the marathon scheduled for 6:15 AM to both beat the heat and return the roads to the cars, bikes and rickshaws.

Since its inception in 2004, the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon has become the largest charity generating platform in India with such icons as Michael Johnson, Linford Christie, Steve Ovett, Paul Tergat, Gail Devers and this year Australian Aboriginal Olympian gold medalist Cathy Freeman serve as its Indian Brand Ambassadors.

The first hour of the marathon was run in the pre dawn darkness over flat smooth roads and cool temperatures. The race was very well organized and both marathoners and half marathoners started together. The route of the race took us along the Mumbai coastline with views of the Arabian Sea and a continued path over the sea via the majestic Sea Link Bridge before turning back onto land with about 15 kilometers remaining before the finish line near the grand Victoria Terminus railway station, which is within close proximity to the famed Taj Mumbai Hotel and the Gateway of India Monument.

With the sun coming up about 8:30 it became very warm, very quickly but thankfully my marathon was halfway over and the crowd support kept me busy as I enjoyed exchanging high fives with the kids lining the course and I stopped frequently to snap their picture, which they loved. With the sun now present, the Mumbai sky takes on a haze both from the humidity but also from the pollution most present from auto exhaust emissions that would sometimes sting your eyes and block out distant views of the city.

Colorful balloons lined the route of a race that was broadcast throughout India and bands played at various parts of the course. Both water and Lucozade sports drink were plentiful as were sponges to be doused over heads as the day developed in Mumbai and temperatures would commonly reach the mid-eighties without a single cloud in the sky throughout my two week stay in Mumbai, Pune and New Delhi.

Despite the heat the course is predominantly flat and this year’s race was won by Girma Assefa in 2:09:54 and Koren Yal 2:26:56 both of whom represented Ethiopia and who both set new Mumbai Marathon records.  The first Indian finishers were Binning Lyngkhoi in 2:21:16 and Jyoti Gawate in 3:05:30.

Coming off November’s NYC Marathon, and with very limited training given an unusually harsh NYC winter and with the intent to take many photos, I enjoyed interacting with the crowd and to just take in the opportunity to run in Marathon in India.  I crossed the finish line in just over 4:38, tired but happy and ready to take on my second goal to visit the schools.  It was there that I went to meet the kids and explain to them how running, like an education, can open new doors, offer new and exciting opportunities and provide young minds and bodies with a strength and perspective to approach challenges with optimism and self-confidence.

Working with Children in Mumbai

The schools were in rural locations throughout the Indian city of Pune and Mumbai, accessible by car after two-hour drives through farmlands dotted with cows, sheep, various crops and the occasional monkeys who were curious to say the least, hungry and had no fear of humans.

As I witnessed in the first ten minutes of arriving in Mumbai, poverty is everywhere with both Indians and nomadic tribes living in tin shacks surrounded by filth and squalor. In spite of the obvious that these were people living in very difficult conditions, children nonetheless were children and appeared happy playing with one another in less than sanitary conditions that were all the more dangerous given the opportunity for a host of diseases.

Some images while haunting, disturbing and just sad were juxtaposed with those of kids – happy, street-smart and equipped with ambition, enthusiasm and a zest for life where life is challenged on a constant basis in many ways most of us have long taken for granted living in a more privileged society.

Arriving at the first school, “Ashram” in Pune with the temps approaching the mid-nineties, the kids were dressed in their school uniforms with groups attending various classes on welding, electrical work, animal husbandry and more. I watched as their instructors worked with them on each subject and saw how attentive and eager they were to learn.

Before they broke for lunch, approximately 140 kids gathered around and sat as our interpreter introduced me as the coach from LAHI who traveled from America to come run the Mumbai marathon and to speak with them. Although English is taught throughout the Indian school system, these groups of 14 and 15 year-old kids were still a bit spotty at understanding an “outsider” and it was thought best to have all information interpreted to Hindi for their behalf.

I introduced myself as someone who came from NYC and who had to train for this marathon in very cold, snowy weather with many clothes, gloves and a hat to keep warm while running, which attracted chuckles from the kids who I imagine have never seen snow. I then went on to explain that I feel there is a strong relationship between the skills they were learning and the practice of running. An education gives you the knowledge and power to do more, to achieve more, and to believe in yourself in the face of adversity and doubt. I went on to explain that like a fit mind through education, running can also empower you to have more confidence in yourself, more self esteem, and the belief that anything you have a passion for and really believe in is possible and can be achieved.

I told them that running has given me a very powerful direction in my own life that has led me to meeting these children in India and that I was grateful for this opportunity to meet them and that I believed in them and all the great things they would accomplish in their lives.

I then told them we would hold some races and give out prizes that included T-shirts from my vast collection of races and some sling bags. I decided to group the kids into 10 apiece and hold heats of 100 meters with the winner of each heat going into the final 150 meter heat. In addition to the uniforms they were wearing, most kids wore sandals as footwear. I demonstrated to them running barefoot on the dusty dirt path, giving instruction on how to position the upper body slightly forward, try to land on the forefoot, swing the arms and breathe through the mouth.

The numerous heats were exciting -- these kids were competitive but also very supportive of one another cheering and applauding the winner of each heat.

I congratulated them, told them how proud I was of them and that I hoped their lives would be one where running and an education would be of greatest importance and that would change their lives and open many doors.

At each school I visited, I repeated the same words with conviction and held the same races and left feeling that I made a small difference.  I believe that they listened and understood, and I hoped that the choices they would make would be the right ones and that the influences they would encounter would be good, would be positive, and would make a difference in shaping their futures.

In my two weeks traveling through India I saw a lot of good.  I also saw images that shocked and disturbed me, and I got to see a culture that had intrigued and fascinated me. I see India as a “sleeping giant” as a country that has achieved so many great things and has made great strides but needs to do more and take greater responsibility in empowering its people. I left India proud and thankful that there was a charity like Lend-A-Hand India that actually wanted to “own” and take responsibility and make an important and everlasting difference in India’s future, in its children, in tomorrow’s leaders and, I hope, its future marathon runners.

Scott C