Run of Shame
By Joanne Lane Mumbai (Bombay) is India`s fashion and movie capital. Its Hindi movie and music business, famous the world over as Bollywood, out grosses its American counterpart in box office attendance every year. With its weekend cricket on the maidans (parks), double decker buses and booming international trading industry, it could easily be mistaken for a prosperous 19th century English industrial city. But India is the land of contrasts and the nations population of 1 billion souls takes its toll even here in the most modern of cities. English born marathoner Peter Lane took to the streets of Mumbai to find out where the real heart of the famous city lay and found a city still challenged by overwhelming human suffering and shame, despite being so fashionably hip and modern reminding him of his early days in Coventry as an Anglo-Indian child caught between two worlds. His daughter, Joanne Lane, reports on his experiences. `Leo` was a favourite game for the kids in the 1950s post war suburb of Hillfields in Coventry. Two teams would take turns to chase and catch each other, and dispose them in a den with a guard unless someone could get past and tag them into freedom. For my father, English born marathoner Peter Lane, it was also a way of escaping the drudgery of inner city working class living and the shame of being Anglo Indian. "I remember running down the streets and alleys, hiding on bombed sites, jumping garden fences for hours and hours on those endless British summer nights... perhaps this is where I developed my natural endurance or it may also have been in the genes - a product of hardy Irish and Indian folk. "Both fish and chips and chicken curry were on the menu at home yet it was not easy being Anglo Indian, there was shame attached to it. I often wondered where I truly belonged ethnically." In those days Hillfields still bore the scars of WWII bombing. It was a poor inner city working class area where many immigrants, especially from Asia, had concentrated to live in cheap housing. For Peter, this area today known as the midlands, was like the childhood described in "Angela`s Ashes". The overcrowding, migrant families and poor housing were also a boyhood extension of India for Peter - running through the streets past Hindu, Sikh and Muslim households with their exotic smells of curry and spice and the twang of Hindi music. Indians were his boyhood friends, a place where white faces and fish and chips were rare, but curries abounded. Where there was no shame attached to be being dark skinned. But it was still a limbo world and when Peter visited Mumbai (Bombay) recently, a run there brought memories flooding back of Coventry. Having scaled the Himalayas in the north, run with the 14km line of singing Hindu pilgrims from the holy city of Haridwar by the Ganges River and seen the magnificence of the once mighty British Raj buildings in Bangalore India no longer holds much surprises for Peter. But Mumbai was something he was not prepared for even after 25 years in and out of India. This is the most fashionable city in India with a music and movie industry famous the world over, and remnants of the Raj era with stylish buildings, weekend cricket and glamorous cafes and restaurants. A far cry from here but within the same city are heartlands of some of the most appalling human conditions. Huge slums, red light districts, poverty stricken families, mafia type dons and communalist politics constantly remind Mumbai she is still in India. It also reminded Peter of Coventry where the line between East and West was blurred. One sixth of the worlds population live in India and 18 million live in Mumbai. Fifty percent of these inhabitants already live without water or electricity and one report claimed breathing air in Mumbai was like smoking 20 cigarettes a day. Since then "oxygen bars" have opened in the city - little use to millions who can barely afford to eat each day. The satellite city New Bombay is hoped to relieve over crowding but it is estimated by the year 2020 Mumbai could be home to as many as 28.5 million people. Into this throng of humanity Peter began his run in the Mumbai suburbs with a desire to explore things conventional tourists would not see. "Running in Coventry playing Leo must have prepared me in some way for the running I did in India and there were only a few cultural adjustments to make. But the shame was still there - perhaps the run of shame really began in Coventry." An overnight thunderstorm from the retreating monsoon had cooled Mumbai (Bombay) down but had left roads awash. A mass of humanity, animals, cycles and vehicles were negotiating the potholes, sewers of human faeces and dead cows along roads now enduring additional suffering under monsoon rains. It is impossible to describe the chaos that is Indian roads, functioning without any apparent rules, signs or traffic lights. Not quite the post war England Peter was used to, but he plunged in. Running in India is an activity for only the most intrepid and dedicated of athletes. It is madness exhilarating, exciting and dangerous. Combined with the dangerous natural elements are religious forces in a country soaked in culture and ancient tradition. As usual Peter was an object of interest for in India no one runs but crazy foreigners. Yet folk chatted to him as he passed the computer shops, chai (tea) stalls and subsi wallahs (vegetable sellers), doctors surgeries, a Hindu temple and a business that made stone railway sleepers. "Aap kahan se hai, sahib?" (Where are you from, sir?) they called.
"Australia se," (from Australia). "Aap kya kar rahe hai?" (What are you doing?)
"Mai dor raha hun," (I am running). Peter passed a nearby playing field and then took to the back streets, running down alley ways, over ditches, avoiding cows, bikes and cars like his days in Coventry. "Here I was running through it all, not only contending with the usual horrendous smell of an Indian city with decaying rubbish, animals and sweaty humans but also the smell of stagnant monsoon waters. "Even above this an overwhelming smell hit me like a smack in the face. For a few seconds I wondered what it was. It was human faeces and urine and I was running through it!" On the road ahead were little piles of human faeces left by children, some whom were still relieving themselves as he ran by. To their right in an open field was a toilet area for women though most tried to avoid the shame of using it in the day. Fifty metres further on men were in their area in another field openly urinating. It reminded him of the communal toilet people in Coventry housing blocks used and how much it was avoided in summer when it ran over and was covered with flies. As he continued he passed packs of scavenging dogs, goats and crows fighting over piles of vegetables scraps left from the open air bazaar (market) held daily from sunset. At least in India the animals kept the place clean as there is no other system in place. Here Peter stopped to get his bearings and saw on his left a densely packed slum area known as Indira Nagar, home to an estimated 15,000 people who live packed in an area the size of three Olympic swimming pools. "All I could do was cry as I looked over what seemed an endless sea of shanty homes which were made from everything conceivably imaginable and available - plastic, sacks, tin, wood - anything that had been thrown away. I`ve seen a lot of things in India but nothing compared to the sight of the Indira Nagar Colony. "I decided to run through it but soon discovered there were only six major tracks, but overnight rains had left two impassable. Even our unused country tracks are better than these that were pitted with rocks, holes and puddles." Local cyclists were skilfully negotiating these obstacles and glanced contemptuously at Peter as he struggled to get through. To make matters worse, whole shanties were surrounded by green stagnant waters and piles of rubbish. "Yeh rastar bund hai, sahib," (this road is closed, sir), a man called to Peter.
"Dhanyavad," (thankyou). Mai dekh sakti hun," (I can see). A local dhobi (washer man) was working in the olive green, stagnant monsoon waters. Children passed him bearing the fruit of his labours - bright blue uniforms rushing off to school in auto rickshaws (three wheeled cars) waiting outside the slums. "Amidst all this filth and squalor you would wonder how or why anyone would bother to keep clean. But even the poorest Indians are clean and people are always seen bathing in public under taps or in rivers. There are amazingly high standards of cleanliness, very different from some of our street people in the west." Peter passed undernourished naked children playing happily in the dirt with old cycle tyres, too young to know of the hardships that lay ahead if they could survive disease, poor diet and limited health services. "The life span in Indira Nagar must be very short with poor diet, no sanitation, but then who cares in a country with one billion people? My running gear worth a paltry UK $35 (India Rs. 3000) would be more than many of these folk would earn in a year." Brightly sari-ed mothers bathed and washed their babies and cooked meals on wood fires appearing saddened and prematurely aged by the burden of their lives, contending with poverty, disease and hopelessness. In contrast men were fixing bikes, doing carpentry, playing cricket or cards and drinking tea playing the privileged roles even amidst poverty. But India is the land of staggering contrasts and for all the rubbish, disease and despair in this slum, Peter noticed people had taken pride in their surroundings. Flags flew proudly from the poorest of houses, some had tiled floors scavenged from rubbish dumps and others even had television antennas. "Even the poor love television. Maybe they can escape the hopelessness of their situation for a few hours by watching the mindless Hindi movies with their repetitive stories of love, song and dance, after all this is where they are produced." Reminding Peter of Saturday afternoons in Coventry when the neighbourhood went to the cinema for the matinees to forget their troubles for a few hours. How he used to wander past the homes of wealthier neighbours in hope they might invite him in to watch their television. A family member eventually scraped some pounds together to buy a television for Peter. Just like in Peter`s neighbourhood in Coventry, the affluent rich lived only a kilometre away from Indira Nagar in luxurious apartments, indifferent and unaware of the suffering in their own city. A line of electricity pylons towered above the shanties striding off to service these people. Peter followed the pylons and moments later emerged outside Indira Nagar, free of its smells, despair and hope, running back along tree lined roads, past tea shops, beauty parlours, computer shops and kindergartens to modern Mumbai. "Ironically I was to talk for two days on aspects of shame both cultural, personal and national. There was plenty to be ashamed about in Indira Nagar, how and why could this place exist? Yet in spite of all this I had been challenged and inspired by the human spirit that never gives up even amidst the depth of hopelessness that would seemingly engulf life itself." Just as had his own childhood. Many of his boyhood friends had struggled against the odds and gone on to be lawyers, doctors, and himself in the health profession. Mumbai has entered the new century with enormous environmental, population and medical problems. It might be the centre of trade and fashion in India with its head in the global marketplace, but these poor are a constant reminder of where the cities real roots lie. It is not in the fashionable shops, computer stores and movie industry, but in the depressing poverty where life is really won and lost... in the slums of Indira Nagar. The real Mumbai. WHEN TO GO
Between the months of September and April is the best time to explore Mumbai. There is a big festival in Mumbai in August/September. GETTING THERE AND AROUND
Mumbai has more international flights than any other Indian centre, it is also the busiest on the domestic flight network. Two railway stations operate out of Mumbai and long distance buses depart from the state road transport terminal opposite Mumbai`s Central railway station.
Mumbai has a good public bus system but there is incredible traffic congestion. WHERE TO STAY
Mumbai has a proliferation of cheap, moderate and expensive hotels. Always ask to see the room first before you pay and check the water runs, the air conditioning works and any other services they promise. Use a guidebook for recommendations. RUNNING IN INDIA
It is best to run outside major cities and centres to avoid pollution and crowds in India. Runners are a novelty because very few Indians run and foreigners are always unusual. Be prepared for stares and even low level harassment. Women may be physically harrassed (more annoying than dangerous) so quiet areas are best avoided and running alone is not recommended. |
