On the run to claim her nationality....Identity crisis | Powai advocate wants to spread awareness of her Gorkha community

Preksha Malu, DNA: Running with pride of being an Indian comes naturally to this Gorkha girl, Roshni Rai. With her project “Run with Roshni”, she wishes to bring her community, which has been facing racial discrimination and an identity crisis, to the Indian mainstream. A Mumbai resident for 10 years, Rai will be running at the Standard Chartered Mumbai Marathon in January with 10 of her community members from Darjeeling.

Coming from a small village called Pedong in Darjeeling, the 34-year-old advocate from Powai, has represented India at national and international marathons and races. She claims to be the fastest of the three Indian women at the 2012 South African human race “Comrades Ultramarathon” of 89km and takes pride in her nationality, but it hasn’t been easy. “We are Nepali-speaking Gorkhas but we are Indian. Many people don’t realise that Nepali is a language listed in the Indian constitution and found on Indian currency notes,” says Rai, who began the project with the express purpose of being accepted as Indian.

Run with Roshni began in 2011 to support native Darjeeling athletes and bring them to the forefront. “Athletes in Darjeeling participate in every race to support their own education and, with this project, I wish to bring empowerment and enlightenment to our community,” she says.

Rai began running at the age of 23 when she suffered a heartbreak. “I was heartbroken and bedridden for 15 days. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and felt utterly useless. One day, I just went out on a run and cried my heart out. I kept crying and running. At one point, the tears stopped but my feet didn’t. I felt so light and kept doing it regularly. That was in 2003 and in 2006, I saw the Mumbai marathon and tried to run it without any practice. I injured myself and felt I couldn’t run in future,” says Rai, who ran six half marathons in 2009.

Rai completed her law degree from Mumbai university and started working at Colgate Palmolive, where she got to know the runners club and her coach Daniel Vaz, who taught her the systematic way of running a marathon. She took up Run with Roshni in 2011 as a part of a leadership course. Ever since, she has been collecting second-hand shoes and funds through Facebook and other means to send them to promising athletes back home in Darjeeling. “Most of them come from a poor background and can’t afford train tickets sometimes. I know these runners and I am confident that they can run a full marathon under three hours without practice. We want to represent our country so that we get accepted as countrymen,” she stresses.

Rai says she is tired of explaining her nationality to everyone. “Even when I practise, exercise or run on the roads, I get called Chinese or chinki. I only want to spread awareness,” she says.