A ride for a noble cause

In Thiruvananthapuram, she has come back for an evening with the family that’s become her own after spending a few days with them. Prakash and his family opened the doors of their home to her. He has invited her to be a part of the third anniversary of Indus Cycling Embassy, that he had started to promote cycling. A mission on the same lines as Sarojini’s was, when she chose to ride through the country. “I had just spent three months in a little place called the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands where there is a high rate of lifestyle diseases.And I was coming back to India, sitting in an airport, thinking of what next to do,” she says. She loved cycling and she wanted to be a resource for low to middle income countries in public health. Also, she had to be home for Christmas. All things together pointed to a cycle ride through her home country.

Sarojini, fondly called Ginny, had left India to study community health in Australia and spent 12 years of her life there. Before that she grew up in Goa, where she bicycled to go everywhere, and piled as a family of five on her dad's scooter. When her parents were getting separated, Ginny had to get away, and ended up in Australia. She had cycled across central America, cycled from New Zealand to the Apps to the ocean. So when she came back to India, she told her brother “I am going to cycle across India”. When, he asked. “In two weeks,” she blurted out. Before she knew it, she was staring at an Indian map, trying to figure out her route. “I folded it in half and said this is my route.” There were a lot of questions, oppositions, concerns about her riding solo. “They said take a car behind you, but that doesn't make sense because I was doing this for the environment, and because I was self-funded.”

Her aims were clear — to ride for women, health and environment. She spoke to people, encountered uncertainties of where to stay and what to eat. She chose to wear kurthas so people understood she’s one of them and they could do it too. “I rode through villages of Haryana and Rajasthan and you have to respect culture for the culture to respect you.” She met people with touching stories — a girl telling her she rode to the next village to reach her school because there was no public transport. The girl wanted to be a teacher and ride across the country like her to promote cycling. Sarojini was moved. That's what she wanted to hear. “To be the person that I want others to be.”
 

 

 

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