BOSTON—Five local Indian-Americans from Massachusetts completed the historic Boston Marathon on Monday: Rishi Palriwala of Needham, Deepika Sawhney of Lexington, Varavani Dwarki of Southborough, Usha Narayana of Natick, and Jayati Banerjee of Weymouth.
Two Kenyans won the title to continue their country’s legacy of dominance in the sport of marathons.
The Boston Marathon this year brought together about 30,000 runners from around the globe and had more than one million spectators.
Banerjee ran her first Boston Marathon this Monday.
“I have been volunteers before for Marathon and it was always a dream to finish the 26.2 miles mark . I ran for Roxbury Community College and raised fund for them,” said Banerjee.
Roxbury Community College is working towards providing optimum opportunity to the community for access to a college education consistent with their interests and aptitudes and to reduce to a minimum economic, social, psychological and academic barriers to educational opportunity.
Professionally, Banerjee is a consultant and works in Sapient Consultancy where she provides program management solutions to customers from large financial organizations.
“From the time I started running, which is early 2014 , running has always inspired me to go more and one day I would like to finish a marathon alongside my daughter who has just turned seven and watched me finishing Boston,” said Banerjee.
Palriwala of Needham ran this year to raise funds for the Big Brother Big Sister (BBBS) program of Boston, an organization he has been part of for nearly three years. He is co-founder of ARP Ventures and previously worked as Finance Manager for Smith and Nephew Orthopedics.
Narayana of Natick completed her race and raised $5,000 for the Natick Community Organic Farm. Narayana works for Bank of America managing their savings products.
“I got a bib for the marathon through the town of Natick. I raised $5k for the Natick Community Organic Farm with the help of friends and family to support their educational programs for young kids. It was an amazing experience – one I hope to repeat again someday.”
Dwarki of Southborough also completed the Boston Marathon and ran for his charity, National Organization for Rare Disorders, known as NORD, a non-profit patient advocacy organization dedicated to individuals with rare diseases and the organizations that serve them. Dwarki is a vice president at Sanofi.
