i saw myself

This entry was never to be. I thought my blog was just a means of keeping friends in touch with the walk. It was great fun writing it and I really looked forward to the act of getting up before anyone was up, to bang away at the laptop with all the ideas accumulated during the day. When the walk ended it was meant to fold up but so many people ask me what were the lessons of the walk that I am forced to think of what the walk taught me- if anything at all.

So here I am writing a blog entry I hope no one ever reads-it’s too personal, its too complicated and there are bound to be loose ends all over- It is about where the last one ended – with me having traversed the journey to Ajmer and at the end of the post making the grand declaration that “the inner journey would now begin” .

Honestly like all others like me who are the standard of the “thinking people” in today’s world I said it for forms sake- because it sounded real nice and gave me a kind of mental edge marking me out as the thinking walker- Like all these “thinking people” I am totally comfortable with form without content and can discuss people, places and things with the right dose of humor – and deliver my punch lines in the right way, but ask me to discuss ideas - particularly ideas that require original thought and I draw a blank! Hence I am probably writing this entry more for myself than for those that may chance upon and decide to read it.

I think the major lesson of the walk was that I knew what I wanted and did all that was necessary to achieve it- and did nothing else.. Had I started out to reach Ajmer and then kept going all over the roa- stopping at Neemrana , going off to Alwar to watch the tigers or deciding not to walk further till I had eaten all the stuff on the menu at Behror- would I have made it Ajmer ? or if I had started to lay the started practicing playing the clarinet to get there ? or if I had practiced walking, packed all the right stuff , got my logistics right but yet not decided where I wanted to go ?
We could all work out the answers to this and yet this is what I have been doing – either not knowing what I wanted or playing the clarinet to learn to walk- and then ruing not reaching the places I wanted to go to.

This came to me not in an “ Ahaa “moment when I walked but it was the at the end of the thought process which started from the moment when on the way to Dudu the Captain stopped by the road to offer us butter milk-and when I cried as I walked away from him. I cried for the God in me I had forgotten all these years-I cried for all those that still believed in love, God, truth , honor, the value of the word, doing the right thing and all such nonsense.. I cried for all those simple clods the world takes for fools and tramples upon as it goes about its daily business-I cried for the simple guy who once believed that the Lion would never eat Androcles because Androcles had done the right thing by the lion- I cried for all the Androcles’ lions eat all over the world for a post breakfast snack- and I Saw myself- Androcles standing in the middle of the arena secure in the knowledge that he had done the right thing and no lion would ever dream of eating him.

I will have to believe in all the simple things that make the real me and live by them since that clod is what I was and this is what I shall forever be and being him is the only way I will ever be at peace.

It will take courage being him – it will take effort on a massive scale- there will be much pain as the pit of the stomach tells me to run every time the lion comes out – but be him I will. I owe it to the Captain and to the remains of all the Androcles’ the lions ate .

I will of course need to work out what will make me Him but then that is a mater of detail- and as the walk has taught me – it is identifying the target that is important – the rest can follow.

The HE did it Saturday

As the last day dawns there is nothing really left to do. The 8 kilometers backlog is easily completed walking in Kishangarh town and we are all up and packing to shift base for the last time. We incidentally whenever we have gone to the temple stayed in a resort which is ahead of the temple ,It is comfortable , small and cosy, with huge lawns and the owner is known to us. This time however I have preferred to stay in Kishangarh because I did not want to miss the thrill of seeing the temple first time as I walked towards it.

We start rather late since we are expecting friends from Delhi to join us. We start round 10 am and cover the 5 kilometers from the city to the main highway in a few minutes. How perspectives have changed since we started!! A few months back walking 5 kilometers would have represented a pinnacle of achievement- now it is just brushed aside casually.

Also whenever we leave a motel all of us carefully pour the water left over in any bottles we have consumed into another one to carry in the backpack. One of my companies sells reverse osmosis water purifiers and I often used to tell clients “you will waste at best 20 liters a day, how does it matter?” Now I am sure I will tell them to collect it in a bucket to water the plants.

The perspective on money has not changed though, since we were doing this trek on a virtually unlimited budget. In the end we will have spent some Rs.12000 per walking day. Looked at like this it does seem a total waste incurred on a whim. There is a school I support in Himachal Pradesh where some 128 children trek upto 10 kilometers every day to be there just because they get a square meal every afternoon. I could have fed them for 7 months with this money. But then any who ask this question or those to whom this does strike are also guilty of the same. We all do prioritize – I don’t think of those children every time I get into the car or switch on the air conditioner or have a meal outside the cost of one such of which can feed all 128 of them for a week ! I brush aside this guilt with the opportunity cost of discovering oneself argument and walk on.

We are joined from Delhi by Arun a very close fried of both Mangesh and me , whose car had broken down so who drove some 700 kilometers that day back and forth to be with us for just two hours and in a Maruti 800 too. His wife has been advised not to travel since she has an eye infection but somehow when she joins us her eye pops open .”Miracle , Miracle ”shouts her daughter. For the Lord I guess just another day at work.

Apoorva’s in laws Vijay and Archana join us a few minutes later. It is of curse sheer injustice to address them thus , since they are also amongst our closest friends. In the hierarchy of Indian families we are supposed to address them as Bhai sahib and Bhabhee jee or something. If I tried doing that I am sure Vijay will beat me up and Archana in her soft cultured voice will tell me “ye apne achaa nahee kiya neelesh”. We all walk in proper kafila towards the temple stopping to refresh ourselves with a glass of water just a few meters before it.

The temple is now in view .I would love to add the ‘excitement mounts’ part but actually it doesn’t - we just walk on just stopping for the kids to shoot a video of us striding in. We have decided to walk in together hand in hand but when we reach the gates we do not know what happens – we suddenly find ourselves in the courtyard – and Aakanksha who has been extremely tense in the last few meters bends down to put her head at my feet- I lift her up and embrace one of my closest friends - who has done so much to egg me on when I was near collapse , with the calm pats on the back, her “come on Papa you can make it” her obstinate refusal to ever let me carry the back pack when she was around and her ever readiness to massage my feet even when she was in extreme pain – and as she hugs back the crying begins.

Suddenly everybody is hugging everybody else and everybody has tears streaming down their faces. We have arrived ! We walk into the garba griha and everyone starts ringing the bells- Sarita calls Apoorva and Rohit and I just say “Apoorva” and hold the mobile against the bell I am clanging feverishly, Sarry calls my sister Vandy and her didi Sunita. From Pune to Vadodara to Switzerland (where Apoorva Rohit currently are) the bells clang out that there is a God and he DOES take care of those that have faith in him.

As Sarry and others prepare for the Arati I sink into a corner – the trance I go into is deeper than ever as I talk to HIM and tell him that at this moment I surrender to HIM all the positive karma if any I have accumulated during the trip. “idanna mamma” it was never mine anyway .I tell him that he should do to me exactly as he has set out to do without letting this come in the way.- this positive karma was just an aberration- HE should do only justice and judge me on the basis of what I make of my life later rather than let this outweigh my negativity which I will have to fight myself. I have told this to Sarry on the way too and told her to judge me only on the basis of what I have been to her not letting this interfere with anything. I want to go back with neither a sense of achievement nor a sense of loss at having completed something so important with nothing left to do. The walk was not to a destination –it was a journey – a tool to help me travel inside and how far I travel inside is something I have to decide. Let the journey begin !!!!!

touching distance Friday

That this is the last step in the journey does not make this any easier. It is the same shade less road, the same thirst, the same step after step after step of pulling oneself on. The spirit understands that the journey is almost over- the body does not. Amazingly HE has taken care of me all the way, there is not a single blister on my feet, my bad knee has not acted up even once, I have had no muscle pull, never a problem of stiffness while getting up. The only problem seems to be the sunburn. Since both Mangesh and I wear shorts and tee shirts while we walk our arms and legs are burnt. My arms look like the shriveled arms of a man 25 years older, there are also surface wounds in the skin and they burn all day. The only respite is when I cover them with the wet cloth but the burning restarts when the cloth runs dry. I am told aloe Vera is good for anything to do with the skin. We are carrying a bunch of aloe Vera leaves which I cut up every night and apply on the arms and legs.

When this is over I had thought many clichés would get validated if I completed the walk- one of them was the old mind over matter thing- at the end I would certainly testify to the truth in that one!.

The women have all tanned many shades and Aakanksha tells me the cost of getting her back to her original complexion will be something like 15000 bucks and that she will need to be on long l eave before she rejoins office since they would throw her out by not being able to recognize her. The cost of staying poor seems to be growing day by day.

For some reason we get up late today and hence will need to walk more in the sun to achieve our target. Sarry’s brother our corporate consultant sets us a target of 28 kilometers for the first session .I and Mangesh like true salesmen argue against it and in the end decide to say yes just to get him off our back. He revels in the make believe role of top management and we enjoy pulling his leg but he is actually doing a magnificent job of managing the back office.

Today the road seems all the more relentless and we have decided to keep going without break to end it today once and for all. By afternoon the search for shade is intense. We spot a roadside temple and decide to take refuge. It is a bajrangbali temple and hence we are sure we want to stop. There is a priest I there who is reading the ramayan over the PA system. He is toneless and so out of rhythm that I burst out laughing. “Look at the biggest sinner on earth,“ say my friends and start laughing too. When I ask them why I was one they ask me to listen to the words of the priest , he is tonelessly singing “je na mitra dukh hoy dukhare tinhee vilokat patak bharee ” (he who is not miserable on seeing the misery of a friend is the biggest sinner) “look at us “ they say , “we are your friends, we have been made miserable because of you , you’re seeing us being miserable but there you are laughing away” QED . Everyone laughs, we pour water over our legs and arms from a running pipe and much refreshed walk on.

The first session ends abruptly at around 1-00pm,one of us is tired and wants a few moments off and as we settle in the shadow of a bus shelter realize we do not have the slightest energy to carry on even one step. We call for the car and even waiting for it to come is a torture.

The last session is made interesting by the first use of the deterrent arsenal. As we stride out Aakanksha takes the lead and is at least 10 yards ahead of us when a young guy suddenly materializes and tries walking with her. Sarry notices and joins her though I and Mangesh are far behind. He is joined by first one then a second till we join them .They then cross the road and go to the other side and rejoin ahead of us at an abandoned petrol station. There are now six of them.
Sarry picks up a stone to throw at them. Now Mangesh notices them and calmly takes out his revolver (the cigarette lighter one ) cleans it and aims it at them. They look at it, one of them raises his hands in a gesture of give-up and they disperse. The day is saved.

We end the day with a 8 km backlog which I promise them I will cover even before they are awake and we drop off.

The met God thursday

Today the second day of the final leg starts some 30 km outside jaipur. Till date we have been coming back to base camp in the afternoon around 1 pm and then leaving again from the same point as we ended at after 4-00 pm.This is the only day that is not possible since when we end the first session we are likely to be somewhere between ajmer and jaipur so that coming back to either base camp will involve a more than one hour drive one way, making rest impossible .We decide to stay on the road all day and take rest at any convenient point at midday.

We begin the day and start walking on the Jaipur Ajmer highway. This stretch of highway is in many ways better than the Jaipur Delhi stretch. It is less crowded, broader in most parts, has absolutely clean rest rooms at every few kilometers and also has emergency phones every 5 kilometers or so from where one can call the control room incase of any mishap. It also has shady neem trees planted along the side which on more than one occasion I saw a tanker watering. When we decide to walk again fifty years from now to celebrate 50 years of this walk there will be so much shade on the highway we will not feel the heat at all- or at least the robots who push our air conditioned wheel chairs will not.

It however suffers from a great disadvantage for walkers. There are many stretches where for maybe 10-15 kilometers there are no villages or motels or even ordinary dhabas. We have the constraint of that we can carry only a maximum of 3 liters of water in the backpacks we have, otherwise they get too heavy and these get exhausted in an hour in the afternoon. We are therefore always looking for places where we can slake our thirst as it is impossible to walk while thirsty. In the afternoon we are looking for such a place having rejected the last one since it did not have power and hence no cold water. We are also looking for a place to stay out of the heat till the afternoon when we spy a building with glass frontage which looks like a hotel. We eagerly walk towards it but to our disappointment we realize it’s a residence. We walk past it and see a dhaba in the distance on the other side of the road. It is dirty but at least has cold bottled water and some soft drinks and we walk on again a little refreshed but unsure of where to rest for the afternoons. We start the namaste ritual more to pep ourselves up then anything else and see a car drive up to us, pull up and wait- and we meet the Captain.

As is the routine I say namaste to the occupant of the car. He is a gentleman in his sixties with two school going granddaughters in the back seat. He gets out of the car “Capt. Om veeer singh ,16th grenadiers retired” he introduces himself. “Are you on a religious walk “ he asks us (kya aap teerth yatree hain) on being told we are he folds his hands and beseeches us to come home with him.” I own the glass fronted house back there”, he says, “ and just as I was waiting to pick up my grandkids from school I saw you walking and told my wife to prepare some meals for you and also open the guest room, so that you could rest awhile at my home. You however crossed the road and disappeared on the other side so I rushed to get my car keys ,put my granddaughters in it and drove ahead to the cut in the verge and drove back to cut you off” he said.

It brings a lump to my throat. I fold my hands to him and thank him profusely but having already gotten our second wind breaking at this stage would not have been appropriate so we tell him that being on a yatra we could not turn back having gone ahead and hence regretfully would have to decline his offer. Accepting the explanation he drives away and we walk away with lumps in our throats for the simplicity of the man. We have hardly walked a kilometer when we see the same car pull up ahead of us and stop under a tree. He gestures us into the shade and says” You walked past my house and it is my duty to ask after your welfare and I could not have slept wel had I not been of service to you so I asked my wife to make some buttermilk for you .Please oblige me by having it” very very reverentially he pours out the chilled butter milk for us.

As we take it and walk away I want to shout out to him and to all of his ilk and tell them” Look dudes I am just waking- there is nothing so good about me . I am not deserving of the respect you give me just because you think you are saluting your God when you serve me- I have lied, I have cheated, I have let people down – I am cheating you when you I let you look at me so respectfully- don’t do this to me guys - I am not even as good as you are- at least you know there is a God within you and know there is one within me. I do not even know THAT- I am walking only to remind myself that there IS a God within me and that he still shows himself to me at times- and YOU saw him in me – don’t be such an idiot Captain, you hurt me bad by showing me so much respect , you shouldn’t have done this to me “ I yell mentally at him and burst out crying. As we walk through the town of Dudu for the next fifteen minutes people stare at the sight of a grown man striding by crying non stop as a younger girl holds his hand and keeps saying “ It is all right papa calm down- It is all right”

A café coffee day miraculously materializes as we are almost at breaking point and we whoop and rush to sip our granitas and munch on sandwiches to ease out the pain at having met God. The rest of the walk is uneventful and we are picked up and taken to reasonably decent hotel to collapse for the night. We are now just 50 kilometers from out final target.

within striking reach wednesday

Jaipur brings with it lovely memories. I was working in jaipur when we got married and the hotel we have shifted to belongs to a then friend with whom I was associated even as he hotel was being built. The moment I step in I ask for Harsh Bansal but am told that he longer comes to the hotel. His brothers sons now run it .It had always been a very family kind of place with the brothers running the hotel part and the wives supervising the kitchen. It has grown much since then and the “Arya Niwas” is now a famous place with a very loyal select clientele. I notice his wife in the in the evening and ask about Harsh. She also gives a very evasive reply. She says he does not come here at all now but manages some construction work. He calls the next day to say he wants to see me too but does not turn up at the time indicated. Obviously something has changed- as has the city of jaipur.

It has grown massively-the sleepy five kilometers across each way town we knew is now chockfull of vehicles- the very lonely road near our old house where would go to watch peacocks is now difficult to cross. Sarry is in a greatly excited state today pointing out this place or that which we knew as a young just married couple, to all the others. We take the mornings session out of Jaipur and reach almost 22 kilometers out of it but for the evening session we walk within Jaipur for two hours because we make a late start from the hotel and had we gone out to the mornings end point we wouldn’t have been able to walk even 5 kilometers before darkness would set in. At the end we go to the house we had lived in and pose outside it. Sarry points out our rooms from outside to the gang and we spend time peering at name plates to see which houses still belong to people we had then known. Nostalgia at its best before tremendous tiredness hits in and as the others troop out to LMB for a traditional Rajasthani meal I sink into unheard of luxury – a hot water tub which relaxes the body completely as does the foot massage given by Sarry’s younger brother who has brought tremendous energy into the trip. He continues to exhort us to do better and says his task is only to motivate the troops. we hit back saying since he only manages the logistics and gives lectures whereas we do all the work he is actually a corporate consultant – good for nothing except giving lectures and then settling down to a company paid meal.

It is very hot in the afternoons and we have reinvented the arab head dress. All of us wrap a drenched chunee round our heads which keeps us cool at least for 2-3 kilometers and then its time again to hold it under the nearest hand pump. It is not very healthy to do that I understand but where is the time to think of such things? What matters is the trudging along at all costs since the temple is now within striking distance. Life is a total blurr and there is no time to think of what is going on. I wish I could write the blog regularly and also upload the hundreds of pictures I keep clicking but there I hardly have time or energy. The mind is also in a haze and I cannot for the love of God remember what the silly jokes are we laugh at all day, though we do laff a lot . Maybe later as we see all the pictures we will remember them later.

We regretfully have not been able to use most of the food we have brought with us. The formality of transferring the food to the room and then back to the car has also been dispensed with .Now the packets stay in the car and are only readjusted every time we want to sit in it.

Thankfully we have also not been able to use our “security equipment”. We are carrying a virtual arsenal. A walking stick ,two knives and two guns besides two cans of pepper spray. The stick is normally waved round a lot, one of the guns is a cigarette lighter and the second fires one iron pellet at a time. The knives though are the greatest laugh. They are housed in wooden scabbards with fancy design on them if we ever need to take them out we would be transported to the sets of some period film and all the villains would have to start calling us Badgane alee or something. And if we were ever to take them outt !!! God the rust would show , though we might pretend the yellow marks are actually dried blood marks of enemies we slew years ago but I am sure the villains would know.
And if ever we were required to use them – that would be the day – since I did try out their sharpness one day and found that I could not get my finger to bleed despite running it over the one many times. I then tried slicing an onion with one of them and found that job it did- albeit with some difficulty- I then breathed a sigh of relief –If a bunch of onions decided to kidnap Aakanksha at least one would be safe. We could slice them up with the bigger knife , spray pepper on them and eat them for salad. And if the onions thought they could team up with a couple of tomatoes to pull off the heist – they would do well to remember we have smaller kripan too!!!!!

Tuesday of the shortcuts.

Today we walked through an authentic Rajasthani village as part of our shortcuts drive. It is amazing how the world of bottled water and cold drinks on call changes just as you exit the highway. We walked through a village called Maadho ka bas and then onto another one called Devan. They had those typical village scenes made so popular by the hindi movies. Sylvan surroundings, women carrying fodder on their head with long ghungats covering their faces, small children scurrying about in sleepy village squares and people coming out en masse to look at us wondering what we were doing on a road that led practically from nowhere to nowhere else. Yes but there were roads – some were tar roads others were concreted ones but the villages we went to were well connected for sure.

Older children in all hues of school uniforms walking determinedly in a particular direction. On being asked were their school was all seemed to say deval – which we discovered just 3 kilometers down the road was Devan and it housed some nine schools. We had a lovely time sitting in the village square with Swati and Sarry quizzing every passing student about their class and what subjects they studied. Word must have spread about some strange women questioning the passing students because their flow slowed down to a trickle.Then the teachers started coming in – and it was their turn.” what subjects do you teach ? do they give you pay commission scales here ? Are there computers in your school?” this could have gone on for much more time had Swati not been stumped by a teacher telling her he taught “science subjects” – on being quizzed further he revealed that he taught General science to classes nine and ten and Political science to class eleven!!!!

Then began the educate the girl child campaign – every girl who came up on the road to look at the cap and jeans wearing women was subjected to questions of why she was not going to school and her mother asked to send her to school immediately. We were duly rewarded for this by some lovely butter milk from one of the households. The warmth all around was incredible as was their fascination for the digital camera. Women would run around shyly, men would puff out their chests and both would squeal in delight on being shown their images on the display. Wish there was some way we could have printed those pictures and given them to them. As I and Mangesh were getting photographed with the man of the house his wife seemed to want to be photographed too and so Aakanksha asked her to move closer to get into the frame. She very reluctantly moved closer till she was about one foot from me – and the dirty stares she got for that were not funny!!! Hope the husband did not divorce her for infidelity.

We gained miles by the shortcuts , we shifted base to Jaipur , we gained by the presence of Kshitij –( Mangesh and Swati’s college going son) who at six feet something could be bodyguard, driver and major morale booster for everybody particularly for Aakanksha didi who since his arrival has been in higher spirits. Sarita is also adding miles to her kitty and does not flinch even at doing 12-15 kilometers at a stretch. To my mind it has been a major cardio vascular test for her and this could be the blessing of the trip.

We however lost in the evening an important wicket in Mangesh the colonel of the our regiment who got taken down with fever. He may not now walk for the next two days at the least even if his fever comes down. If the fever continues he may have to even go back home which would be tragedy of tremendous proportions since he has been the backbone of the whole trip from day one. Wait and watch is the policy till tomorrow morning.

We did a major calculation and found that I now need 140 kilometers over four days to get to the temple. It is achievable at a steady 40 kilometers a day .I have done that on most days till now but have been blessed with nice hotel rooms to retire too. This next stretch from jaipur to Ajmer is such that at least on one day I will have to be on the road all day and that in this heat can be killing.

We continue to eat mostly food bought from outside promising ourselves tat all the loads of things we got from home would be need from the next day- they seem fated to get the tables groaning again when we return.

monday of the backup plans

It was the night of Monday the 21st, the town hall clock had already struck 12 times and the day had technically begun-while all the citizens of the sleepy town of behror slept-and the denizens of the night prepared to leave their lairs in search of prey-a shrill bell broke the silence of the room in the Motel midway where three bedraggled travelers lay fast asleep to rest their strained muscles. He got up and rushed to the phone and was horrified to see the time,” at this time of the night? ” he muttered under his breath as he heard the voice at the other end say- “Sir, I am Ajay Singh brother of Suresh Singh, driver – our father has suffered a serious heart attack , can you please send him back immediately?”

Thus began Mondays walk at 1-15 am as we rushed to the dormitory to wake Suresh and hand him some money to head back home. It could have been a tragedy of massive proportions- many questions could have arisen like “who will now ferry us back and forth from starting points? Who will ferry Sarry over with the breakfast or send her back when she is tired.? Who will pick us up at night or take us to the next destination?” It could have caused any number of problems – except that it did not- a backup plan B immediately got formed as Aakanksha sleepily got up and told her mom “go off to sleep mum don’t worry tomorrow I will drive and then we will look for something” and we all went back to sleep.

One of the Kulkarni family strong points we are totally proud of is- we are masters of the back up plan- it is almost instinct by now- have a problem, assess damage , calculate possibilities, and act on the new plan!!! We all slept off peacefully.

But it was one of those days and the plan had to be again recast in the morning since another complication came in-Aakanksha who had been suffering from a very bad cold for the last three days found she could hardly breathe and had chest pain too and found she could not even walk.- let alone drive. The toss up was between walking or giving up on the day and taking her to hospital. Aakanksha was obviously more important but yet we thought we might give her some time to rest since she had been pretty badly drained the last day by setting too scorching a pace when the heat was getting to us. She had done right because that pace had kept me and Mangesh going but it had taken too heavy a toll of her. We decided I would walk for an hour and Sarry would stay behind , Aakanksha would sleep for some more time-and we would assess the position after an hour – if Aakanksha was worse we would take her to hospital- if she was sleeping Sarry would bring us the breakfast- and after 4-5 hours she would pick us up and drive back to the hotel to settle the bills and check out.

So we began that day with Aakanksha missing and Swati taking up the mantle to carry on the fight. We walked on from Behror to the next halt Kotputli which the signboard outside out motel was only 22 kms away though google earth thought it was 26. the idea was to walk this 22 kms at a stretch in about 5 hours. Since we had again got delayed at the start it would mean walking till 11-00 am at least- and believe you me the heat on the highway is scorching at that time. It drains you so much that the energy required to finish the last 5 kms is more than what is required for almost twice the distance in the morning.

We were very fortunate that day that the rest made Aakanksha better and we did not have to rush her to hospital. We were also fortunate that we discovered that we could actually cut a few kilometers off by walking through the fields and villages around the highway. We took a first detour which cut a good 6 kilometers from our walk and then took another one that cut on more stretch of 3 kilometers and made it a little ahead of where we would have been had we gone by the highway.

Then we lost another wicket- Mangesh had sever pain in the right leg and could not go on- so we put the next back up plan in action. We sent Mangesh back to settle the bills, pack the stuff with Sarry and get the car to pick us up on route to the next stop-Shahpura. Swati and I blundered on and though we knew in the heat there was not much we cold add to the tally yet every kilometer added is one weight off the evening and hence worth the trouble. The last 5 km was pure torture and we had to stop almost every kilometer to sip from the bottle of water we carried and yet could not resist the temptation to enter the first roadside motel we saw. Twenty minutes sipping a lassi each, washing our faces with soap and water and we were rejuvenated enough to get the next three kilometers under our belt till we had had enough and dumped ourselves on the first roadside culvert we found. They picked us up an hour alter they told us we had been sitting with our feet dangling into a dry roadside drain!!!!

The motel at shahpura had no electricity that time and just as I came out of the bath Sarry was getting upset with the manager- I don’t know what I said to her but don’t remember anything except that within seconds just having a bed under me was heaven- no fan, no a/c and yet I slept like a log for two hours. Swati dropped out of the last session at shahpura too and it was only Sarry and me who surprisingly chipped in with a neat 12kms to bring my days tally to 40 kilometers and the distance traveled because of shortcuts to 50 kilometers .Enough for the day – I cannot keep my self up any longer.

I regret my posts are getting boring- but I cannot help it – it is like being in some kind of boot camp- getup walk- sleep get up walk and collapse !!!!!! but I will try and think up of some nice one liners tomorrow.

gadget sunday.

Nice sentimental and partly spiritual entry yesterday - no? I wonder if I told any of you but my greatest ambition at one point of time was to be editor of “Readers digest” I wrote this one when I was in training and thought it would fit on well here. Besides this change of flavor was really required since this was beginning to get too much of a “ nubile nymphets and me” kind of blog and this after all is about how I am walking to thank the lord for my wife and family’s happiness.

Today was spent in covering up the gap between where we were and where we should have been, This was roughly 40kms and though we plan to leave behror tomorrow morning, by the distances covered we reached there only tonight. This town represent exactly 1/3rd of the distance required to be traveled and we have made it in three and a half days. My back seems to ache a lot and in the first session I had Suresh, my driver press my back almost every 20 minutes in the end in order to be able to make it to the 23 km mark I had set for myself for that session. However hard we try we are unable to make it to the start of the morning session before 5-45am or so and after all the stops for water and breakfast it is almost 11-45am by the time we finish and then the heat is terrible. It drains us so totally that the last 4 kms take almost as much energy as the rest of the day. Everybody walked with us today as did last night. Sarry did a magnificent job of organizing the entire back up including a delicious breakfast of sandwiches and cutlets with hot steaming cups of tea , all of which she carted from our hotel. Our friends Prafulla and Sangeeta came in for the day and walked a few kilometers with us. Mangesh’s dad and Prafulla’s mum also came in for the day to bless us.
The entire gang went back in the afternoon today and by evening it was only the five of us. We planned to ensure we walked at least 20 kms in the evening session to take the tally to around 45kms for the day ending the day a bit closer to the target. It did not quite happen like that because just as the five of us were about 5 kms from the hotel we had a man stop by us to specially tell us that this was not the kind of place where women could walk after dark. Our driver also came in to say he had seen loads of suspicious looking characters around the dhaba where we had stopped for tea. Coming from him it was quite scary and we bundled off the ladies to the hotel in the car and walked the rest alone. All this led to us walking almost 5 kms less than budgeted and we are falling behind on a regular basis since on no day are we able to complete the 45 kms budgeted. This also led to a heated discussion on women’s rights over dinner at a nearby resort and made the food quite spicy.

Incidentally my gadgets are faring worse than me on the trip. First my internet connection would not work, then the mobile charger got burnt out. Now the adopter to my laptop gave up too as did the earphones for my mp3 player. I guess they no longer make stuff strong as they did when they made me.

The only gadgets that work well is the massagers. They were the most reluctantly added bit of equipment to our luggage- since no one wanted a mechanical massager. We wanted a to take a real live massage specialist with us to ease out strained muscles. This was shot down by Sarry who insisted that it ought to be a male so that proper pressure could be applied to knotted muscles and my insistence on delicate fingers softly easing out pain. Both were therefore dropped but we took two mechanical massagers – a Japanese one that beats and pummels you like the local pehalwan ad the Chinese one that vibrates against you .All present tried out both today and by a huge margin the Chinese concept was declared the winner.

Tomorrow we shift base to shahpura which is exactly half way to Ajmer and we hope to cover the distance to shahpura in a day and a half and then leave for Jaipur. Due to the gap between where we are staying and where we are supposed to be walking, growing per day all planning is going haywire. Maybe when we are in Jaipur we may have to start from a point some 35 kms before jaipur and then walk into the city we already checked into the day before. What kind of gap is going to be carried over to the last day is not known and might require me to walk maybe 20 hours on the last day to get to the temple. Scary- very very scary !!!

Namaste saturday

Today was when e discovered the power of the namaste. The simple folding of hands to respectfully greet everyone- we discovered its magic It all started off yesterday evening- we were walking along the right side of the road near the edge of the highway we would often find vehicles coming from the opposite side driving too close to the edge causing us to have to get off the main road disturbing our pace. Mangesh then took up the a walking stick he was carrying and started waving them aside just before they came close to us. We found that without exception most would swerve away to avoid our path. I was a bit scared tat some f them may not take it as gesture of offence and decide to swerve back on to us and so I started folding my hands whenever he would wave any away.
to apologize for the convenience caused. And we found that the response was immediate.

We did a namaste to everyone who drove by. We did it to truckers, we did it to motor cycle riders , we did it to tractor trolley drivers carrying mud for the road building sites, we did it to bus drivers and also to the occasional camel cart driver. And Boy did they respondd.!!!! The truckers sounded their horn, some flashed their lights, the motor cyclists smiled and nodded their heads some bowing low over the handle in acknowledgement. The camel cart owners and the tractor drivers smiled back and most folded back their hands almost as enthusiastically as we did and we felt as if every time we folded our hands and were acknowledged a bolt of pure energy was passing through us. Most faces first relaxed, then smiled and then lit up and then bowed their heads at us. They were strange faces, they were unknown faces, they were faces we had never seen before, they were faces we might never see again, they were faces we might never connect to again even if they crossed each other but when they smiled all of us were one and there was so much light all around that I think denizens of the darkest places in the universe must have for a micro second wondered why it was such a brighter place then. It was not me they were bowing to nor smiling at- it was the yatri they saw in me. Since in the Indian way of thinking anyone walking like that was automatically thought of as someone on a pilgrimage and when I bowed to them I actually bowed to my God and when they smiled and bowed back they were smiling at their own god. From deep within the recesses of our minds our Gods for that split second peeped out and
acknowledged each other – and the universe crackled.

Of course this was only the Bharatwasis that did all this- those that
were Bharatwasis pretending to be Indians just slightly with a serious face moved their heads downwards in an imperceptible nod as if to say you look stupid but its okk we might as well let you bow to us!! And all the Indians in their snazzy
cars racing past were badly embarrassed. They would look at us and the moment we did a namaste turn away totally embarrassed. It was if I was giving them a lecture on ‘ The implications of server configuration for lateral cost cutting
in the automobile accessories industry” - and they had suddenly discovered my fly was open.


Today was also the day we moved base from Dharuhera our first halt to the second Behror which is midway between Delhi and jaipur. Rohit and Apoorva
joined us along with Sarita and Swati with the surprise package of Rohit’s
sister Soumya and dinner at mod way was therefore an exacting affair. Though
we arrived physically at midway we are in walk terms 57 kms behind it and maybe 20 kms behind target . There are still aches and pains and my back seems to hurt more than the legs, both Aakanksha and Mangesh have boils on their feet and find walking a pain but yet they drag themselves on, The driver
also joined today and is proving to be a big help -and tomorrow is another day !!!!!

Friday- the real start

Friday morning is when we were to start at 5-30 pm on the dot but inevitably with Kulkarnis involved we got a little late getting off the starting point. Swati and Mangesh turned up more or less on time but my backpack was biting into my shoulders. Apoorva got me another one at 5-00 in the morning from somewhere deep in her In-laws house and the process of transferring stuff took time. We then went over to Swati’s parents’ house nearby to get their blessings and finally started off from Aya nagar at 6-30am.

As we trundled over to make a good beginning we encountered in sequence some swine – with no symptoms of flu- so we felt safe, then we met an ass which very propitiously brayed at us.( I am sure you do know that all the tribal chieftains in the eastern side of lower Zanzibar regularly employ ass brayers to make their asses bray at them )and then we met the horses!!! Some magnificent horses walked past us and as we walked by I could not resist the temptation to pick off a few snapshots. As I walked along with the horses I am sure I stuck a magnificent figure- noble man and noble beast walking in sync- because that is when I stuck pay dirt.

I suddenly found 4-5 local women walking by begin to look at me with interest, at times giggle, at times points at me, at times jabber excitedly. Naturally I drew the right conclusion and stopped with my stomach pulled in, my chest thrust out and gave a masculine side ways glance at the prettiest of the lot. Will wonders never cease!!! She started jumping up and down in excitement and point at the road behind me, This of course totally unnerved even me- class 1 rake that I am. “Wouldn’t this be too public a place” I wanted to tell her and as I was mentally translating this into Hindi I decided to humor her and check out the place she wanted us to obviously use. And there over the last 200 meters were all the contents of my rucksack. Apparently the zip had come open on its own and stuff had spilled on to the road.

That besides the rest of the journey was uneventful. We walked little less than what we had anticipated but also found that there was a major glitch in the calculations- whereas google earth had indicated the distance to Dharuhera was 42 kms it apparently it measured it at the end point of Gurgaon where as we had walked from the Delhi border. We also managed to walk a bit less than what we had planned and therefore ended up 17 kms behind where we should have been that night. We consoled ourselves with the explanation that this was just after all the first day and next day we would start on time and cover it up.

There were minor pains and aches but nothing not manageable. But yes we had forgotten to do all the things we had been told were must do’s when we walk. We did not drink enough water- we started off an empty stomach, and I even forgot to take my blood pressure medicine due to which I felt a little dizzy when walking in the afternoon. Yes an important fact that came up was that we were not at all hungry. We had a sandwich each for breakfast and maybe one and a half for lunch and yet dinner time were hardly hungry. Food that was quite tasty was just pushed in before we dropped off to sleep.

Aakanksha came up with the idea that whereas lunch and breakfast could be light we would have a normal dinner -though not stuffing ourselves.” This would give us something to look forward to” she thought. .

She also walked over to me before sleeping and softly said ,”Papa thanks for bringing me on this trip-life suddenly seems so sorted out” Before I could bask in the glory of a lesson well taught she added , “ before this day I used to sympathize with you for having crazy daughters- but now I know the reason I and Tai are what we are- and no longer feel guilty about it:”.

Thursday-the start off

Pure existential dilemma ! A Librans worst nightmare come true. How do I go about it? Do I tell you what happened before we left ending the narrative where we dropped off to sleep yesterday and pretend today has not happened yet and I have posted this early morning as was my wont or do I bring you upto date at what happened since morning also when I did not get the chance to write anything worthwhile. As a good Kulkarni I take the biggest decisions on hunches and run around trying to see them through and as a good Libran I fret over the smallest things for hours. But then like every good lazy person I often take recourse to Virgin’s Branson’s thought process and say “screw it let me do it!!!” So I have decided I will only tell you yesterday’s story. Let us keep this on a day to day basis. Makes it more balanced and systematic- which you know all Librans love.

So it was that we started off to pack all the stuff that was lying on every vertical surface of the house. Sarita was given the task of getting them into a few cartons and into all the bags that we could find at home. My wife, even if I say so, is a magician- she is an expert at that slight eye movement which can make the most despondent of depressives into a King and if required reduce the mightiest of Kings to jelly-but that besides she has other magical skills too- and she must have used her invisible magical wand well, because by the time I came back from office at about 2-30pm ( for a 4-00pm leaving deadline mind you) all the food the tables were groaning under the weight of was neatly packed in duffel bags and the house seemed recognizable again. At the exact moment of my entry Aakanksha was throwing all her clothes all over her room looking for this or that and Sarita was collecting them and putting them in a bag- and both were muttering under their breaths- just a normal Kulkarni household scene – till she was sorted out too- which is when the fun began!!

I also insisted on packing at least the bag with medicines and the computer and camera peripherals and ended up keeping the wad of money that I had on the table and forgot all about it. Then everything got packed and just as I was making the final check in walked mangesh and Swati with the additional complication that Mangesh had still loads of office work left so they would only make symbolic start today and join us the next day. They said they would help in placing the cartons etc in the car to reduce the load on the next day and then suddenly everyone was throwing thing into the boot of the car. I kept sitting quietly on the sofa waiting to complete my quota of “good for nothing” stares. After all the bags were almost gone I realized I did not know where the wad of notes was. I must have shouted some thing because the very next moment everyone had abandoned the car fill up project and was searching for the wad. After hundreds of people rushed about all over the house it was discovered under the bananas and was handed over to me. I put it in the wallet put the wallet in my pouch and forgot where I put it. Thus it so transpired that after all the bags were loaded and I was making a final check that I realized I was one wallet less. Such things are normally met with an uproar in my house but this one was met with a total silence. A pin could have set off an avalanche by dropping in my drawing room before bedlam set in again. All the bags were dropped back on the floor opened searched for something whose shape and size only I and Sarita knew. Am I glad I remembered fifteen minutes later that they were in the bag I had been carrying all along. And to put it very very mildly the bags were loaded again. Had Jermome kumar Jerome not copyrighted this scene I could have written a book called “five people in a car”.

Anyways the coconut was broken, holy water sprinkled on everyone and later a symbolic start with others walking the first 2 kms with me and Aakanksha .We stopped by at the first hanuman temple we came across, just after we crossed the Yamuna river and not being Bharatiya but pure bred Indians waved to him and said “hey Dude we are like coming over Ok!! Watch out for us” you keep watching out too.!!!!!!

Starting Off

The internet is not working where we are.Looks like we'll have to postpone blogging for a day.But do watch out for 2 blogs tommorow.

waiting to pack

I wonder how many of you have seen the movie “Gandhi” .Waittttt - this is not the same Gandhi story – this is a new one –and it was not in the movie either. I just thought I would use the same beginning since I cannot think up new ones all the time.

The story is that Nehru , Patel and others were bustling around when Gandhi asked them what they were so busy doing. Nehru replied that they were busy organizing the next trip Gandhi was to take. Gandhi immediately retorted that he was a simple man traveling only third class by rail and staying in an ashram or a hut. Why would the trip of a poor man take so much organizing he wondered? “ohh Bapu “ replied Nehru “you have no idea how much money has to be spent to keep you poor” He alluded no doubt to the security , the paraphlenia the arrangements for the hangers on and the visitors and so on.

If Nehru was around now he would look at what we were doing and say” Neelesh if you really are so poor that you need to walk why don’t you just take a flight – it would be cheaper.” Actually he would be right- this walkathon is costing us so much it would be cheaper to take flight to Jaipur and hire a Mercedes or an Audi from there to Ajmer and follow the same route back - maybe with lunch at the Ram Bagh palace thrown in for effect.

Jesus!!! Who ever could think so much money would be involved. Hotel bookings for ourselves and the support teams, food for at least 10 people every day including the driver, the cost of the fuel, medicines of all types, the new shoes and the food together are costing us a bomb. Two or three walks like this and it will actually be cheaper to shift the temple to Delhi. Spending hard earned money in a recession on torturing oneself should actually be classified as the ultimate in self flagellation!!!!! Wonder if the Guinness book has a category on that!!!!

And the food- oh God !! How much food we are carrying has to be seen to be believed. We have biscuits, chocolates, corn flakes , muesli , all forms of nuts ( nuts carrying nuts – look at the irony) energy bars , oats, tea coffee making stuff, butter , jam, jelly. Take a look at my dining table – I don’t think it has had so much food set up on it over the last year in totality. Food is piled over the dining table, it is piled over the center table and people are still pouring it into our house.
Just today Anil and Manju came over with some energy bars- and threw them over the main gate since we were not at home. We had incidentally gone to another friend Sangeeta’s place to pick up the 2 kg of marathi chiwda and an equal amount of ladoos she has made for us and yet Sarry is still going on and on about what to serve us for breakfast every day. Last night me and Mangesh had a real loud fight with Swati and Sarita because they did not know what to feed us for breakfast!!!

And then there are the medicines- medicines for coughs. Medicines for colds, medicines for allergies, medicines for blood pressure, sprays for sprains, creams for skin rashes and yes - two cans of pepper spray.


For the uninitiated this sprays pepper (how clearly I explain) onto any attackers out to trouble us. This is generally kept by women in their purses to ward off eve teasers. We were the cause of much ribbing on this item of purchase yesterday evening when friend who had come over wanted to know why I and Mangesh wanted pepper spray. Were we afraid strange women might tease us and run away,? Were we venturing into Adam teasing territory? Did we really think we were sexy enough for some women to tease us? Were we often teasd by strange women? in hindi it sounds better “kya tumhe tumahree izzat loote jane ka dar hai?” (are you afraid you will be raped ? virtually translates at that) It was finally concluded that we were carrying the pepper spray so that enroute if any women showed the slightest possibility of molesting us – we could threaten to spray them with pepper- unless they agreed to complete the molestation. A weapon to ensure no women ran away before molesting us was the use assigned to these two bottles.

Now if we can get all of this stuff into the bags that we own and we can get all the bags into the car that we own – leaving some space for a driver to sit- we leave house today at 4-00 pm .Let the drums rollllllll .

the final plan

Me, Mangesh and Aakanksha plan to start at 5-30 every morning and then go on till 9-00 maybe with two ten-minute breaks in between and then take a breakfast break. Sarita and Swati will join us at that time and after tea and some stuff to eat we will amble off again with them round 9-30 or 10 and keep walking albeit a bit slower till 11-30 by which time we expect to cover at least 30 kms . At this point the car will pick us up and take us the nearest motel room where we would bathe, do our yoga stretches and get a nap after lunch. The car would drop us off round 4-00 pm at where it picked us up and we will then walk till 7-00 pm to complete our daily grind.

On the day on which I practice fully I do 25 kms – which though much less than the 40kms or 50kms targeted during the final walk is still enough since it is accomplished after 6-8 hours of office and often with only 5 hours of sleep at night. In the walk we plan to sleep 2 hours by day and another 8 by night –plus there will be the healthy food, the continuous intake of nimbu paani , ( and hopefully the wife in a pampering mood )and the total absence of stress- all of which should help increases the timing to 8 hours.

We originally planned to start on the 18th morning but then one of our friends chipped in with the info that it was amavasya and hence a bad day to start a good thing. I don’t actually believe in all this stuff but then Swati does- as also Sarita and both felt that since we know it is an inauspicious day why start!!!! We could have started on the 19th which is a good day to begin but then it would upset the schedule a lot since we plan to return back the day before Dussera ( Mangesh Swati have major Dussera celebrations at home) and starting late would leave us with no buffer, which at one day is too lean anyway. It could rain , a calf muscle could strain, someone could fall sick and any number of possible mishaps occur.

Now we start at 4-00 pm tomorrow . All will assemble at our house, break the coconut and start for Apoorva’s house . Whereas Sarita , Swati and Mangesh will just symbolically walk and then head back home I and Aakanksha will walk three hours to get there. They will join up there later , celebrate Sarita’s birthday (she turns 51 on the 17th) and sleep over. Next day morning as we head back to the road Sarita and Swati will come back home ( as they are working on Friday) and join us only on Saturday morning when Rohit - Apoorva will drop them to where we are.


Gossh its scaryyy. But I had no option had I?? When I was fervently praying for Sarita’s recovery and this thought flashed across my mind, we both knew I had thought this , did we not - God and I. Could I have then faced him and my self if I had suppressed the thought and pretended it had not occurred- and yet prayed on. Could I say “Please Please God take care of her and sorry yaar but I can’t put myself to the inconvenience of a walk of 400kms but you do your job – OKKKK!!!” So if the thought occurred I HAD to commit to it. And once committed where was the question of going back on it ?

Going back can be easy “Ohh God I would have but you know my knees hurt !! Business God business - who will take care of it ? I know I was reckless but you are forgiving are you not – so let it be.” Or the perennial favorite “Of course I am going to do it God but I did not mention a time period did I? Just you watch what I do “ and then wait for the next mishap to happen and then cry and say “ I know I let you down Godd but this time- just this one more timeee”

Whatever I did and said He would know and maybe even forgive me- but I would know too and I am not a forgiving guy- at least not for myself. It is not the fear of what God would do that scares me- just the fact that when I next peep into myself to talk to him , he just may not respond. If I have to face myself I have got to do what I said I would. And I don’t want Neelesh telling me all my life I let him down.

My lake

The lake near my house has helped me a lot in preparing for the walk. For that matter I have spent more time with the lake over the last five months than I have with Sarita , or even with the office or anyone or anything else.

The moment I started to practice the question that would immediately pop up from everywhere was “but then where will you practice?” in any urban jungle it is impossible sounding that some area could possibly have a place where one can walk for 2 to 3 hours at a stretch without the boredom of having to walk past the same places again and again. Of course come to think of it Delhi is singularly lucky that way – we have the ridge, we have budha jayanti garden on it as well as mahavir vanasthali, we have the talkatora gardens, Nehru park, the noida park and the Indraprastha park but all these would involve driving from between a few minutes to an hour to get their one way and waste a lot of time. Without my lake the “Walker” was doomed to be a” Never walker “ even before he started.

The lake is called sanjay lake- it is a 7 acre lake set in a 70 acre park that is part grassy lawn, part Japanese garden, part wooded jungle - with a suspension bridge, a boat house , a waterfall ,a windmill (albeit not in working order now) and hundreds of ducks. There is a path which runs all around it and through the park and whereas it begins some fifty meter from my house it meanders all over the area running round the lake , going over the suspension bridge past the place where the ducks feed to over the yoga platform and then back again. This whole journey at a brisk pace which I have timed at around 6 kms an hour takes two hours – a distance covered of almost 12 kms. Additionally there is also a tar road running behind the colony and around a part of the park which adds around another 3 kms for two rounds.

Walk though all this and viola you have spent three hours of continuous movement with only your music for company and which normally ends in reaching back home completely drenched in sweat with the last half hour having been spent registering almost nothing of what goes on around. I have grown really fond of the lake and am surely going to miss it once this is over.

This lake at one point of time till maybe 4 years ago used to be a major stopover point for migratory birds and in the winters one would see literally the entire area carpeted with birds of various shapes and sizes. Then as usual population pressure took over and people from some of the resettlement colonies on one side of it started releasing their sewer lines into it – and the birds disappeared. Off and on the government declares grandiose plans to restore it and convert it into a tourist spot hence the boat club and the suspension bridge and the ducks and so onn. They dammed abut half of it for the boat house and put in a windmill and two waterfalls as well as a few fountains- and then promptly forgot about them. One of the waterfalls does at times work and the water at that end is cleaner because of the aeration – but the other one and the windmill as well as all the fountains are in a state of complete breakdown.

The lawns, the paths and the bridge etc are though well maintained and every morning hundreds of footballers, yoga enthusiasts, laughter club members and yes how can I forget the cricketers – besides the walkers and joggers like me descend on it and bring it all to life only to leave the lake to rest from 9 am till the early evening when all of them troop right back in. I owe them all a debt of gratitude for having been a part of me over the last few weeks as I do the lake.

There is not much I can do for those that meet there but I sure can for the lake and as soon as this walkathon is over I plan to organize a campaign to shake up the government from its lethargy and for a start at least get them to get the aeration systems working so that the water is purer – the sewer lines are already stopped- maybe next year when I walk past , the birds will be trooping in again- and the lake will smile a thank you to me- and I will smile back and say – you did more for me than I did for you friend- rest well !!!!!!!”

it is out in the open

When I fist thought this is what I wanted to do I really didn’t know how to go about it. Big vow made- great job but what happens next? Would I walk alone or would I walk with someone- if it was someone who would agree to spending ten days on the road with me – besides my immediate family ( of which Sarita of course couldn’t’ walk so much due to her heart condition) how would the logistics be managed ? Who would form the support team? Would someone ever agree to be support team?

Most people would have thought of these things before deciding what to do but that is not the true blue kulkarni style- As per our system first we make these grand gestures then run all over town harassed and harried wondering how to go about fulfilling them- and at the end of it we also complain how we are always under pressure. This style is the greatest kulkarni strength as well as weakness. All that we own all that we have achieved has been a result of this recklessness – this “Fxxx the thought lets just go and do it” has been a regular in our family – so had I told my wife or kids first about this resolve it would not have surprised them- but they wouldn’t have liked it and would have shot it down with a mixture of argument , emotional blackmail and plain wearing me out by tantrums – (besides me the three others in my immediate family are females – which explains it) Besides I wanted to be sure myself about what I was letting myself in for. Needed a reaction which would be like mine and so I took the idea to another Kulkarni- my friend Mangesh .

To say he is my bestest friend will sound teenagerish but outside my wife he is the best friend I have. He is the exact opposite of what I am. As grounded as I am outrageously flamboyant, as calm as I am hyper , and as rock solid reliable as I am fickle. He is probably one of the few persons towards whom I would always be totally loyal come what may. And the pers0n who I thought would shoot it down calmly with “nahee neelesh mushkil hai- don’t try such stuff” but when while returning from yoga one morning almost 6 months ago I told him this he just stood silently for some time and said “ but it will have to be after divalee- because I will not be able to take off before that” and I was not even asking him for support in terms of going with me- just tossing an idea around and he just stood there and calculated that if I was going I would need support and he would have to go too. And with that one statement he set the ball rolling –

We broke it to our families a month thereafter – we had gone to the temple- to offer thanks for Sarita’s recovery and as was usual as soon as we exited there was a round of – what did u leave at the temple this time ?? and we kind of looked at each other and said – “this time we have left nothing- only sworn that our next visit to the temple will be on foot “ We had chosen the venue craftily and well- all of us are devotees so all of us would know that once sworn here the vow would have to fulfilled come what may- andddddd we were met with a stone wall of silence. It was a kind of betrayal actually- telling the wives and kids after we had apparently met and planned it and then springing it on them when we knew they would never be able to say no to it. But there was no other way – if we wanted to do it this was the only way it could have been done.

Sarita was quiet, almost sullen and Swati came out strong as usual offering various arguments about how this was not the right thing to do or how we could do this symbolically- but none tried to dissuade us from doing it. But after we came back I found her walking every evening – by the time I realized she was committed she was already up to 6 kms per day.

We told Aakanksha my younger daughter after we came back and she just gave an usual understated response and got around to thinking of how and when to apply for leave- it was known she was coming too-and all the way or nothing she said. “I don’t agree with you but if you have decide you are going to do it I will stand by you” is the family code and she felt she had no option but to adhere to it

Apoorva my married daughter was as expected the most vociferous in her opposition as we knew she would be – she worries too much-out of love more than anything else and her first reaction was wild anger –“ how can you do this to us Papa? How can you act so irresponsibly? “ and know what -I know she was right-I had acted irresponsibly but in my scheme of things I knew I had no option. Now she continues to argue but is the first to offer suggestion when the discussions on this starts- and yesterday when she said she was proud of me it brought a lump to my throat.. My son in law Rohit very calmly argued against it but in his own way very understatedly “agreed to disagree” and yet support in whatever ways he could. Would not have expected anything else of him.


I still do not know what Sarita felt when she heard this- I had actually let her down quite badly – but I felt it was justified by the fact that i had sworn to do it out of love for her. And so the die was cast – the major walkathon was sanctioned – and the only thing that remained was to actually start walking .

I wonder how many of you have seen the movie “Gandhi”. I have and have always been deeply impressed by it. I particularly liked the scenes in which  Gandhi is on his historic Dandi march to walk some 200 kms to the sea beach to make salt in defiance of British orders. As he walks on relaxed, confident and calm- people keep joining up with him till a mass of humanity congregates on the sea beach and in a symbolic act shakes up an empire.

 In one of the scenes a rookie British reporter is walking next to him trying hard to get his attention- Gandhi asks him his name “Walker” says the reporter- “why were your forefathers called Walker?” asks Gandhi “Maybe because they walked a lot” replies the reporter. Gandhi pauses mid stride - looks at him with an impish look and says “Well then my name should be walker too” and bursts out laughing and strides onn

From the 18^th of September onwards my name is going to be Walker too – Cause I am going to walk a lot from then till the 26th – almost twice the distance Gandhi walked – from my home in Delhi to the balaji temple at Gagwana near Ajmer- a distance of some 400 kms by car and maybe a  little less when I walk – I plan to reach there by the 26^th walking some 45 kms a day on an average to be confirmed as a walker -or maybe land up with a tag of  “Tried to be Walker”.

It is partly in fulfillment of a religious vow . We have been going to this temple at least twice an year – before every auspicious occasion to ask for blessings-after every occasion to thank for blessings given-whenever in trouble to ask for help, and when nothing has happened to merely thank Him for no troubles sent.

When Sarita was unwell last year and I was under terrible stress about her heart condition the thought had flashed through my mind that I would walk to the temple when she would get well. When by his grace she did I thought it was time to pay off the debt.

Maybe it was some adolescent dream dormant in my subconscious of the beloved being mortally sick and the hero swearing to complete some impossible task to get her back and it just flashed across my mind just as Sarry lay sick- but  flash it did and I felt I was morally bound to complete it.

Balaji incidentally is not the same as the Balaji down south where he is Lord Vishnu, In Rajasthan Balaji is the name of Lord Hanuman – and this temple I am talking about is just another nondescript temple by the roadside- one look at it and you will wonder what the hype was about!!!!! I was introduced to it some 25 years ago by a friend when I was working in Jaipur and under some stress –“ just ask here and it will be answered” he said- I did and it was. I tried again after a few months and that was answered too- The only condition there I was told was that to receive you have to give up something you really like- and since then my entire family has been known for giving up things- we give up eating non vegetarian food one year - tea coffee another-sweets a third- rice a fourth- (Of course when we give up one we restart the other –otherwise we would have been eating and drinking nothing by now.)

After those first two times many years ago I have never asked for anything specific-maybe I am afraid the illusion will break- maybe I just don’t want to lose the faith – or maybe he really has been kind to me- I have no idea. He also has not played a major role in my day to day life- I am not the kind of person who would say “Ohh lord please please make sure this order materializes – Lord I hope my daughter gets through in her exams” -or anything like that-and I have also on occasions cheated on the vow made- but I guess He has been forgiving

 and at the back of my mind has been the secure feeling that if all else should fail I have someone to fall back upon .

 the faith defies all logical thinking- it contradicts all that I say about being rational and not getting taken in by superstition- but it is there all the same – and therefore from the 18^th of September I shall walk – and end up either being called “Walker” – or “tried to be walker” .