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Published: November 29th 2010
Madh island ferry
There is nothing like a ferry to wipe out any notion of competitionThe Bombay Hash House Harriers don't take their athletics too seriously.
At 10am, when the rest of the city's joggers were no doubt finished and showered, the 'hashers' were busy unloading beer and ice from a car. There were sandwiches to eat, greetings to be made and a few brief guidelines given, and then the 20 or so hashers were off through a fishing village at anything from a fast trot to a friendly stroll, shouting 'on! on!'.
Well, you probably need to be a little loopy to run in this city.
I had always wanted to try hashing. It is a bit like urban orienteering without compasses and without rules. The idea is that the runners follow a course marked with chalk or, in our case, red electrical tape. The course could include false trails, dead-ends and lead you anywhere - and in Mumbai, that really means anywhere.
Our route began in Versova, north of Juhu beach. It took us down through a fishing village to one of the sulfurous black creeks leaking out of the suburbs. We crossed this by ferry, took a track past a jade green washing pond. The island we were on
Heading for a down-down
Alas, Tom and I couldn't help but want to keep up with the front-runner is mostly home to fishing communities. A few people waved and cheered as we ran past. Most just stared.
Tom and I were following a young woman from Bandra and two expats. They were all experienced hashers, but the course was easy to follow. The biggest obstacle was the wall of stench from Bombil fish left to dry by the roadside. These little fish have a smell like no other and it seems to wedge itself inside your nostrils and follow you around for days.
The spirit of hashing is fiercely anti-competitive, but I still tried too hard. I was sunburnt and exhausted when we returned to our start point 9km later. And the activity for the day was only just starting.
The Hash House Harriers originated in the 1930s when British soldiers in Malaya began running on Monday evenings to shake off the weekend's indulgences. Their secondary aim was to develop a healthy thirst for beer. In the 1970s their idea was revived by clubs that sprang up around the world, and a decade later the Bombay Hash House Harriers came into being.
The president of the Bombay chapter is Bonsai. As her hash-name suggests,
Trash hash
Rubbish makes a surprisingly good, absorbent running surface Bonsai is about five feet tall, but she drinks beer with the best and has an almost fiersome presence. When she told everyone to congregate around a three-foot block of ice, we obeyed. Regulars launched into a 'hashing anthem' with rather naughty hand gestures. Everyone was teasing each other, with more sexual innuendo than you'd hear in a Shepherd's Bush pub. I nearly choked on my Kingfisher.
Soon the ice became a throne on which one could be punished for any misdemeanour, real or imagined. Latecomers were forced to sit, with their buttocks turning painful then numb. Visitors received the same treatment. And of course 'hashing virgins' like ourselves were given an extra-long stint on the ice. The punishment only ends when you've upended a goblet of beer.
Perhaps this explains why, today, I am sore everywhere except my bum.
Headache aside, I wish I was going to be around for the next run. Certainly beats a fartlek around Wimbledon Common.
On, on, I say!
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Tot: 0.057s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 16; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0333s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Bombay Blues
Tushar
hey
NIce blog! are you running the full marathon??