They couldn't make Indians play squash or rugby, but made them run
- Pravin Palande
- ET PrimeUpdated: Apr 22, 2026, 15:49 IST IST
If London, New York, and Tokyo can have it, why not Mumbai, screamed Chhagan Bhujbal, then the deputy chief minister of Maharashtra, after patiently listening to bureaucratic wrangling for hours as to how a city like Mumbai can’t afford it. It wasn’t for building the next Big Ben, or Statue of Liberty or the Tokyo Tower. It was to permit people run! Yes, the Mumbai marathon.
Inside the high-ceilinged conference room of the Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of the Maharashtra government in Mumbai’s Nariman Point, Vivek Singh stood alone before a squad of the state’s most powerful bureaucrats. It was early 2003, and Singh, the co-founder of Procam International, had just proposed shutting down 42.2 km of South Mumbai’s notoriously busy roads for a marathon.
Inside the high-ceilinged conference room of the Mantralaya, the administrative headquarters of the Maharashtra government in Mumbai’s Nariman Point, Vivek Singh stood alone before a squad of the state’s most powerful bureaucrats. It was early 2003, and Singh, the co-founder of Procam International, had just proposed shutting down 42.2 km of South Mumbai’s notoriously busy roads for a marathon.
