The bicycle diaries: Discovering India with 'new eyes'

Often, the journey is more important than the destination itself. That’s probably why a rising number of travellers are ignoring the luxuries of airports and first-class seats and preferring a mode of transport seldom considered for a long holiday the humble bicycle. You see, it’s all about experience and for those who seek to soak in adventure, two wheels and a pedal seem the perfect mix.

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” Marcel Proust

Santhosh & Akshatha: Dancing in tandem

Collegemates Santhosh M V and Akshatha S Rao married in 2007 after which they started working for a company that used adventure as a tool for training. But they soon got tired of the mechanical nature of their jobs and on their wedding anniversary drew up a list of what they really wanted to do.

Interestingly, ballroom dance was right on top and they soon enrolled with an institute in the US. “Before going to the States, we signed up with couchsurfing.org, which has profiles of people who are willing to host those who travel.” Inspired by a Swiss couple who were touring the South of India on a tandem bicycle, Santosh built his own. It took him two months but when they rode it, it was all that they had hoped for.

“We initially did a trial trip covering 500 km in the US, with the message ‘A Healthy Touch’,” reveals Akshatha. On the trip, they combined teaching and their love for ballroom dancing and tutored the young and the old about the benefits of dancing and how it could boost confidence and mutual respect.

However, towards the end of their trip, they also learnt about suicidal tendencies among children. “The reasons were many love affairs, humiliation over talking to boys, peer pressure and teasing, parental pressure over studies, fear of failure, etc.,” adds Akshatha.

And that’s when the couple began their Suicide Prevention Ride from August 11, 2013 to what could be a year on the road.

“In the seven months of our trip, we have interacted with over 9,000 students across 71 institutions, covering Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan, MP and UP,” says Santhosh, talking from somewhere near Aligarh. “This trip is self-funded and we earn along the way through opportunities to teach dance in school for a few days. We ask people to contribute whatever they feel like,” adds Santhosh.

Vasanti Joshi: Teaching by example

Vasanti Joshi, who teaches commerce at the SNDT Arts and Commerce College for Women, Pune, is better known for her cycling adventures than well, her classes. Recently, she led a group of 25 women who cycled over 1,500 kilometres from Pune to Kanyakumari.

“I would describe it as a journey that took us from ‘I’ to ‘We’ (the rally was actually a trip to mark the 151st birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda).  Sports and games are about competition but the beauty of such an adventure is that you are competing with yourself and challenging your own capabilities. It really didn’t matter who reached first it was all about getting there together,” Joshi says.

The associate professor, who was also a national-level basketball player in her younger days, fell in love with the bicycle after participating in Pune’s Enduro 3 championship which involves cycling, trekking and river crossing. “The format required each team of three to have a female member and I got drafted since I was fit.”

She loved that experience of 2004 so much that she went on to do several bicycle journeys. She became the first woman to cycle successfully to the top of Khardung La (18,350 ft high, the highest motorable road in the world) in the Leh-Ladhak region and she has also completed the Narmada Parikrama of 2,725 km on a cycle, a ritualistic journey around the holy river.

The trip to Kanyakumari, which was her way of passing on her passion to her students, was meticulously planned. “We practiced for three months so that the girls became physically and mentally fit. We even had support staff, including cooks, in two cars accompanying us. Everything was according to schedule and we cycled in single file. It was a dream come true on January 12 when we reached Cape Comorin.”

Dr Unni Krishnan Karunakara: Doctor without borders

This doctor had his first brush with cycling when he was on an internship in Bengaluru way back in 1988. He joined a cycling expedition from Delhi to Srinagar to Leh and back. But a planned trip to Kanyakumari was delayed when he was diagnosed with hepatitis.

For the good doctor, the mainland’s southern-most tip remained a dream for a quarter of a century.

But after a distinguished, fulfilling career in medicine and public health the last assignment saw him heading the Nobel Prize winning Médecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) as its international president he decided to take a year off and start cycling again.

“I covered Jammu, Chandigarh, Delhi, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Goa, Mangalore, Chennai, Vellore, Pondicherry, Kanyakumari and Thiruvananthapuram.”

The 112-day journey that started on October 12, 2013, was carefully charted so that the public health expert could visit the premier medical institutes of the country and pass on his knowledge to a new generation of medical students.

“I decided to combine my two passions. Medicines have little to do with public health, which is actually linked to several social determinants like politics and economics.” His main aim though, was to rediscover India, a land he had left two decades ago.

“The country has changed a lot. There is a lot more traffic and noise and it was harder to cycle on the highways, so I tried to go along the smaller roads. I chose a cycle because I could stop whenever I wanted and interact with people and and I’m happy to report that I found them all extremely friendly.”

Try that on an airplane.

Thomas Chacko: Never too late for a drive

Driving has always been a passion for Thomas Chacko, who, with great enthusiasm, agreed to edit a friend’s book on an adventurous journey around the country in a Maruti Swift. In the process, Chacko was overpowered by a desire to undertake a similar journey of his own, in a Nano.

He wrote to the Tatas and was thrilled when they agreed to provide a car and the required funds. The 63-year-old corporate honcho started from Mumbai on May 3, 2012 and was on the road for 78 days. He covered 26,500 km, and drove the “smallest car” to India’s farthest reaches, Tawang in the East, Kanyakumari in the South, Dwarka in the West, Kargil in the North and in Ladakh, ascended both Khardung La and Tanglang La, the highest and second highest motorable roads in the world.