Deep in the underworld crime syndicate of India lies the origin of now a reformed ultramarathon runner who decided to beat all odds.
Rahul Jadhav was a gangster, an underworld hitman, an extortionist and an alcoholic. Today, he is a de-addiction counsellor and an ultra-marathoner.
Forty-four-year-old Jadhav had a decade-long stint with the Mumbai underworld, and when the Mumbai crime branch arrested him in 2007, he had grown to be one of the most wanted gangsters of his time.
"It's the roadmap to easy money, the underworld," says Jadhav. "And as a young boy from a lower-middle-class family, all I wanted was cash."
Like innumerable youths in the nineties, Jadhav was a 21-year-old when he joined Jaidev Reddy*, a notorious don in Mumbai, lured by the glimmer of quick money, the glamour of guns, and gluttony for expensive scotch, and even expensive bar dancers.
An ace extortionist, he enjoyed every luxury that organised crime afforded its proficient patrons around the turn of the twenty-first century. The indulgences were making him into an alcoholic and drug addict, but he made no effort to control these addictions. They made his crimes easier.
With determined hopes of making capital in the booming world of extortion, Jadhav joined the Mumbai underworld in 1997. After witnessing two decades of blood spilled by mafia gangs wrestling for control over Mumbai, the fabric of the underworld was changing at the time.
Bollywood extortionists and business people were now entering the scene.
"With the Mumbai police unleashing its encounter squad and the state enacting the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), extortion became the easiest source of income for gangsters," said Jadhav.
After his arrest in 2007, Jadhav spent three years in prisons across Mumbai and Thane. Taking lessons from a terror accused in the 7/11 Mumbai blasts, he argued his own bail application and was granted the same in 2010.
Three years later, in 2013, Jadhav was absolved of all charges, but he was still an alcoholic and drug addict. He would stay high for days on hooch and cheap, local variants of drugs.
In late 2015, his counsellor, during a session, asked him about his strengths. Jadhav knew he was good with the 9mm pistol, an ace at extorting lakhs of rupees from real estate developers at gunpoint, but those could not be his answers. He said running. When asked if he had experience, he said he runs when he is chased – from cops, the people he shot at, and rival gang members.
The counsellor informed him of an upcoming 10-km marathon in Pune and asked him to train for it. She knew the frail outlaw's addiction went beyond alcohol and drugs.
In January 2016, Jadhav participated in the Pune marathon. He returned to Mumbai a few months later and took up a job. He has since participated in dozens of marathons and has covered over 10,000 kilometres running, including a 2019 run from Mumbai's Gateway of India to the India Gate in Delhi. As he continues to outrun his demons, he hopes to break the national stadium run record one day.