Bandraites run for a cause

Sunday mornings are best spent lazying around. But on February 27, residents living in the queen of suburbs had a different day. Over 25,000 participants came out in large numbers for a sporty morning voicing concern for different causes and plain fun.

Amongst them was 18-year-old Sashank Chada who could not hide his delight when his wheelchair was at the forefront of the start-line. Chada was participating at the ‘Must Run’ minithon organised by H/West Ward Federation and Wake Up Bandra on Sunday. “I am very excited and have assured my brother of a win,” he said. Chada was participating in the wheelchair category to promote a disabled-free world.

While youngsters were keen to make point on fitness, senior citizens were not far behind either. Dinesh Thakkar, 61-year-old who came all the way from Dahisar was complaining of not being allowed to run.

Resident of Bandra for 42 years, 71-year-old Dr Rama Iyer joked, “I wanted to run in the open category but my wife insisted that I should keep my age in mind and made me run in the senior citizen category.” Most senior citizens ran to save municipal schools.

To add to the urgency of saving them, municipal school children from Gazdar Band school ran too. “We have practised for the past two weeks for over an hour,” said Priyanka Kanoje, standard eight student of Gazdar Band municipal school. When asked about the placard ‘Equal education to every child’ she held, she cracked up along with 200 other students saying. “Khali de diya, bataya nahi kisliye hai.” (They just gave it to us without explaining what it stands for).

Mumbai police sent a team to participate in the tournament to ensure improve the ‘police-public’ relation. “The idea to run in a public tournament is to decrease the communication gap,” said Bhausaheb Krishna Bhosale, one of the participants.

“We were happy with the success we received,” said Anandini Thakoor, one of the organisers.