India's slum golf

An orange plastic ball is airborne, like a Diwali rocket, flat, fast and out of control in a Mumbai suburb. Its flight is stopped rather abruptly by a sparkling white Honda City. The driver, flummoxed by the sound of ball crashing into sheet metal, stops a few feet ahead of the scene of the crime. After thoroughly scanning the car for dents, he looks around, shrugs and drives on.

A little later, the orange ball’s trajectory is disrupted again – first by an irate bus driver and later by a curious traffic cop. The bus driver rather indignantly rebukes the owner of the plastic ball – a young man in a TaylorMade peaked cap – for playing in the streets. The policeman, however, only has an innocuous question: “What is this game you boys are playing?”

Vishal Rokde adjusts his cap, channels a James Bond swagger and answers , “Golf, Slum Golf.” Chembur, a suburb in eastern Mumbai, was one of the first sites in the city where refugee camps were set up to settle displaced Sindhi refugees after the Partition. Chembur Camp – surrounded by industries, a fertiliser plant, garbage incinerators, overflowing  drains and, more recently, a monorail – has evolved in the shadow of the neighbouring Bombay Presidency Golf Club, which was established way back in 1827.

Vishal and friends Suresh Mehboobani and Pawan  Deshmukh work as caddies at the golf club. As curious children they learnt about the game, as most kids here do, through the power of observation. Standing on the shoulders of their friends or seated on black stone walls, these lads watched as film stars and other celebrities teed off, trailed by a flock of press photographers.

But these eager young fans did more than just learn the game, they took it back to the camp. Suresh, now a caddie at a golf course in nearby Kharghar, is widely credited as being behind Slum Golf. Clubs are fashioned from steel rods used on construction sites, grips are made from rubber pipes and plastic balls, abundantly available and reasonably priced at Rs5 (about 35 fils), are bought from the neighbourhood provision store.

The 30-odd players chip in Rs50 each, and the winner walks away with a prize money of Rs1,000. A keenly contested event, Slum Golf has slowly evolved into a tournament that not only the caddies, but everyone at Chembur Camp looks forward to every year.