Kantilal Mote and Babu Walvi, who arrived in Mumbai from remote Dhadgaon, a tribal village in Nandurbar town, close to Nashik, represent rural India’s attempt to make its presence felt in the city’s marathon, shimmering with gliteratti.

But there’s more to bridging this rural-urban divide than comparing the calories of energy-bars and jaggery-nuts.

“In city races with thousands running, we like the feeling of breaking away from the crowd and shooting ahead,” says Walvi (25) softly in his Pavra dialect, spoken only by a few hundred in the state. Entered into the 21-km race, Walvi, whose village was only recently connected to the closest town by a bus, works on the farms, cuts bamboo canes and travels far to work in kilns for a Rs 25 daily wage. Suddenly winning Rs 500 in a village 10-km road-race, had him hooked to running and the Mumbai marathon — which generates Rs 18 crores from charity, and boasts a prize-treasury of $ 2,40,000 — makes the travel to Mumbai worthwhile.

Big money that—even if they can win a fraction—since the bulk of their subsistence comes from selling moha-flower packets for 50 paise. A little trick is consuming the carbohydrate-rich moha, also used in wineries. Strengthened though by manual labour, and with lungs strengthened naturally from moving up and down in the Satpura ranges, the duo are a far cry from the gymming Mumbai runners.

Running shoes is always a sore point — the two wearing a pair if given by someone or simply taking off bare-foot in other runs.

Kantilal Mote grew up believing he’d grow taller if he ran long distance. He says, “Unchi tar naai vadhli, palnyaachi chatak lagoon geli (I never grew tall, but got hooked to running).”