Travel on empty pockets

Two small-town guys have set out on a 500-day trip to explore the country, with less than Rs 1,000 in their bank accounts.

 

Meet Anuj Khurana, 25, and Ishant Kumar, 22. Their journey started in Mumbai in July and it has just been over two months but they have experienced it all — were in custody for 18 hours because of mistaken identity, lived on prasad and langar at temples and gurdwaras, went hungry for hours, slept on road dividers, bus stops, parks, were shooed away by cops... and the list goes on.

Anuj and Ishant met during the auditions for Roadies. It was the love for travel that pushed Anuj for auditioning, for which he had also come to Hyderabad. “I have gone on many solo motorcycle trips... My family is not too pleased with this lifestyle as they wanted me to join the family business. I tried, but soon realised that I was not made for it. Ishant, at the same time, was trying to crack a chartered accountancy exam, but couldn’t. So, I decided to move to Gurgaon and was living on my cousin’s money.

“Then I called Ishant over. It all started on his birthday, when we wanted to travel. But we did not have money, and decided to ask for free rides and that’s how we reached Jaipur. We slept on dividers, parks, a truck driver and a pizza store manager were kind enough to give us food. That’s when the idea of hitchhiking throughout the country stuck us,” says Anuj.

The two had borrowed money to travel to Mumbai in train, which they decided to pay back. “We decided to dance on the train and within two hours we collected Rs 1,350. People enjoyed our performance so much they started dancing along,” says Anuj.

The two reached Mumbai, slept at bus stands, where they were shooed away by cops. One of their friends helped them get a small room at a location where a lot of serials are shot. But the journey was not all smooth in Mumbai. “It was the day before Yakub Memon was executed. The cops suspected me to be a Pakistani because of my  beard. I told them our story, about the hitchhiking trip, but they said they could only let us go after Memon was executed. That’s how we ended up in custody for 18 hours,” says Anuj.

Anuj had made many friends during his bike trips and one of them happened to be in Pune — their next destination. The duo travelled on a borrowed bike till Lavasa and back to Pune, when Anuj fell sick. He then had to withdraw around Rs 650 from his account, and later the bank deducted the rest of the money as penalty (for not having minimum balance), leaving him with hardly Rs 10 — the sum currently in his account.

After he recovered, they hitchhiked to Aurangabad, Ajanta, Ellora, Pune again and then moved to Goa. In Goa, they had the choice of sleeping on beaches. But soon the two got a job to cook in return for a place to stay and food to eat.

After 12 days in Goa, they hitchhiked to Bengaluru.

The duo is now checking out the city, asking for free rides. Their story has inspired many, who get in touch with them on Facebook and invite them to meet over meals. They say that food is the only driving force behind such meetings. “I posted our story on a Facebook group and within a few hours I got 70 to 80 phone calls, 20+ Facebook messages. I was overwhelmed,” says Anuj. The two have also become used to living off the roads and luxury, in fact, makes them uncomfortable. The two are now planning to work, save up money and travel to Lakshadweep.

“We need the money because we unfortunately can’t hitchhike to Lakshadweep.”

The duo will also be visiting Hyderabad and Anuj is already sharing photos from his journey on a Facebook page called MOVE, which has managed to inspire quite a few who constantly write on their walls to connect with them. Anuj and Ishant later plan to make a documentary out of the hitchhiking trip.