Ride of a Lifetime

(The last part of Anirban's bicycle journey for raising anti-tobacco awareness. He embarks on a tour around the world this winter.)

After leaving Delhi my next stop was Panipat.

It’s the city of weavers and is known for the historic battles but at present most of the people are engaged in the colour dying sector. The rate of tobacco addiction was rather high in comparison to other cities hence I visited different mills, local washermen’s groups, craftsmen with my message. The night was spent at the local gurdwara. That night when I was lying on my makeshift bed and trying to recollect the day’s experience, suddenly I noticed a group of young Sikh boys were gradually walking towards me. I was alarmed but to my surprise they quietly came to encourage me and hand over some money for rest of my trip!

Karnal is a town of Haryana state. The original of Karnal city is Karnalaya — “House of Karna” — a bold character of the Mahabharata. Despite its mighty past, the city was quiet and rather peaceful. Here I had the opportunity to address some 500 students in the local girls’ school. They felicitated me and a local resident was kind enough to offer me hospitality for that night.

By this time I was accustomed to how to inform people about the horrified effects of tobacco addiction, how to cycling thousands of kilometres, how to adjust in a five-star accommodation to a village dweller’s house, how to deliver speech in front of hundreds of listeners and last but not the least how to enjoy the nature and capture them on my small digital camera.

Getting past Ambala, I reached Pinjore on the Christmas day to enter Himachal Pradesh and gradually move up towards Solan.

Himachal was not part of my initial route map. However, this state has the best tobacco control and I felt a need to experience it on my own. Though I was not equipped with the right bike to go uphill but I did not want to miss the opportunity. As I moved uphill, it was daunting and I could cover only half the distance that I was covering in the plains but the excitement kept me moving up to the colder areas. In Shimla, I contacted an NGO and was spellbound by their warm welcome. I also met the mayor and superintendent of police of Shimla to inform them about my anti-cancer ride. I met lots of tourists from different part of India in Shimla and explained to them about of my bicycle trip.

Leaving Shimla, I reached Chandigarh, the capital of Haryana. In Chandigarh, I found a planned city with a faster lifestyle. Here addiction to liquor is common instead of tobacco though gutka consumption is high. Garshankar in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur district was my next destination where I met roadside dwellers, trolley vendors among others to spread my message. In Garshankar, I delivered a speech about the tobacco menace at a govt girls’ high school with quite confidence.

 Touching the finishing line

Now, I am almost on the last session of my bicycle tour. Crossing Gadriwala, a village in Zira tehsil in Firozapur district of Punjab, and reached Kathua, one among the 22 administrative districts that comprise Jammu and Kashmir. Addiction to smoking is very less in this state, known as the “Paradise on Earth”, but gutka consumption is very high. I was greeted by the local police officers and asked to be a guest of honour. I spent the night at the superintendent of police’s bungalow. 

Leaving Kathua, I moved towards the city of Jammu, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir. There also, I was felicitated by the police superintendent and I addressed a police training camp and commando training camp.

In this 50-day trip, I travelled about 2,500 km, crossed 35 districts and touched 10 states of India with a strong will and dream that one day the country will be free of smokers.

Out of my comfort zone

(In the second part of the blog, Anirban narrates his ride experience through Hindi heartland affected by addiction to tobacco)

From Kulti, my next stop was Topchanchi, a small town in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad district. Who has not visited Topchanchi cannot make out its scenic beauty. I was spellbound by the small hillocks with lush green forests decorating both sides of the road in the Topchanchi area.

From Topchanchi town onwards, I noticed that gutka (chewing tobacco) consumption was very high instead of smoking. Here, I met Akhilesh Jadav, Topchanchi block development officer. He was very excited about my bicycle tour and the anti-tobacco campaign. After I started my ride from Kolkata, several newspapers and TV channels covered my bicycle tour and campaign. Several people in the small town seemed to have been aware of that. I delivered a small speech in a village school in Topchanchi that was arranged by Jadav.

The next day, I took a night halt at Giridih district’s Bagador, a very small town, around 45 km from Topchanchi. Here, I stayed at a house in a Muslim village. Next morning, while I was leaving the town, I stopped a while and thought how lucky I am to have born in such a beautiful country. The next night, I stayed at a roadside dhaba in the Dobhi region.

In the dhaba, I took class of truck drivers, cleaners and helpers as they all are addicted to different forms of tobacco. But the reaction from them was mixed, which I carefully noted it in my diary. My next destination was Aurangabad in Bihar where I stayed at a gurdwara with the help of a Panjabi friend in Aurangabad. Kudra is a hamlet on the border of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh but nothing exciting happened in the village except I spent the night at a small temple there.

Longest state to ride

The district magistrate in Chandauli in eastern Uttar Pradesh was more than forthcoming in supporting my anti-tobacco campaign. I was greeted by the district magistrate himself. Like the BDO in Topchanchi, he also and arranged a speech of mine among his office staff and even he promised me that he was going to print posters, hand bills to distribute within his jurisdiction. That night I put up as a guest at the district magistrate’s sprawling bungalow.

Varanasi, the holy city, is really vibrant and colorful with different sadhus, food-sellers, shops and temples making the ancient town cosmopolitan. I visited different ghats and talked to people of different caste and creed regarding the effects of consuming tobacco. Here also additional district magistrate Mangla Prasad greeted me and arranged a lecture in a co-education higher secondary school. Prasad also arranged my night stay there at his bungalow.

Gopiganj, a small town in Badoli district of Uttar Pradesh, was my next stop. Here also I met villagers and tried to highlight the harmful effects of khaini and gutka. While chewing tobacco is popular in this part of India, not many people were addicted to smoking much. I put up at the local police station for the night and got a good reception there from the police staff. In all this while, I calculated that I have already spent some 20 days after leaving Kolkata.

My next destination was Allahabad, commonly known as the Prayag where three rivers meet. On way to Allahabad, I met Anil Joshi, the Padmashree man with his bicycle team. He was very glad about my bicycle trip and its motto. Joshi, the founder of Himalayan Environmental Studies and Conservation Organisation, embarked on a mission to study jal-zameen-jungle from Jalpaiguri in West Bengal to Dehradun in Uttarakhand in November. I met him by sheer chance and he offered me to be a guest of honour at Allahabad University with his team. Along with Joshi, I stayed about two-three days and by this time we crossed Khagra where we stayed in a small village house. He also thanked and appreciated me for coming out with such a noble cause.

About 10 km before entering the city of Kanpur, I left Joshi because he was on a different mission and on different route. In Kanpur also, I maintained my routine to inform and alert the common people and so-called uneducated class of the society about the effects of tobacco in any form. In Kanpur, I was felicitated by Dev Sing, Kanpur CMO, and by his kind co-operation I stayed at a government bungalow. While entering Akbarpur, some villagers stopped me to know about my mission. But after knowing about my bicycle trip in a nutshell, they were overwhelmed and appreciated me from their heart. The panchayat mukhiya arranged my stay at the panchayat samiti’s guest room.

On my ride from Akbarpur to Auriya, I crossed Etawah --- the confluence of five rivers Yamuna, Chameli, Sond, Paur and Kuyare --- near Chambal ghati, the place known for its notoriety of dacoits.

After crossing Firojabad, famous for bangles, I reached the city of Taj Mahal --- Agra. It is also a city of mixed culture and religion. The city of love’s greatest monument also carries a distinguished historical value in the world’s modern history. We know about the epic love story of Shah Jehan and Mumtaj, and the construction of the Taj Mahal on the Yamuna bank. However, I maintained my routine of cycling along with informing and awakening the common mass about the lamentable effects of tobacco even in the city that epitomised love. In Agra, I was welcomed and amicably treated by the city’s biggest gurdwara.

From Agra, my ride towards Delhi covered two important cities. One is Mathura, one of the oldest cities of the civilization. The Mathura district magistrate also offered me a stay at his bungalow. These night rests helped me work relentlessly in the daylight hours when I could talk to people, teach youngsters about the evils tobacco can bring to the society. My last halt before New Delhi was Palwal where I got an accommodation at the police guesthouse.

Never ever I felt alone during my tour on the saddle as most of the people could understand the problem tobacco addiction can bring to a person’s health. 

(Revisit this blog on September 21 for the last and challenging part of his ride for cancer awareness from Kolkata to Kashmir. Picture of Topchanchi Lake sourced from the Net)

Ride against cancer

(In 2012, Discover on Wheels founder-member Anirban Acharya pedalled from Kolkata to Kashmir to raise awareness against tobacco consumption. He narrates his incredible experience in this three-part blog starting September 15, 2014)

Since my childhood I have been wanderlust by nature. 

I visited different places of India not only for mere travelling but to know about the people of my beloved country. Travelling to historical places, pilgrimage, seaside, forests, different towns, mountains helps know me about the varied culture and rituals of this vast country.

India is really a place of pomp and grandeur but what I noticed common among all the inhabitants of India — irrespective of any culture and religion — is “addiction to tobacco”: from east to west, north to south. I was in a state of confusion that why this particular from of “addiction” is so common and popular from rural to urban India.

After a study, I found that “tobacco”, a tall perennial herbaceous flowering plant and belonging to the solanaceae or nightshade family, is used in different forms of addiction from the early 1600 AD. The main culprit was “nicotiana” (Nicotiana Tabacum), a toxic colourless or yellowish oily nitrogen containing chemical (C10H14N2) is chief active constituent of tobacco .Then I decided to criss-cross my country on a bicycle for an anti-tobacco campaign.

I chose the northern part of India because there live the highest number of tobacco-consuming population.

Why bicycle

Bicycling is considered to be one of the most effective low-impact exercises that also allows a person to be close to nature. It has been observed that with increasing level of pollution, cycling could be the most viable alternative for commuting within a city and also saves on gas consumption. For many, bicycling may be a race against each other or to win distances in a rally or simply the pleasure of adventure. It has been proven beyond doubt that bicycling is the mode of transport of the future.

I started pedalling when I was in school. With my bicycle, I travelled in West Bengal and learn how to make simpler life, don’t worry how much money you have if the path is beautiful, confirm where it leads but if the destination is beautiful, don’t bother how the path is — just move on. This has been my motivation to travel more and more. I planned a trip from Kolkata to Kashmir and I chalked out the total expedition distance of 2,500 km across 10 states and 35 districts that would keep me nearly one and a half months out of home.

On the saddle, at last

It was a sunny morning of November 18, 2012, when I started my ride from Kolkata my hometown enthusiast by a cluster of friends with warm hugs. After leaving the city, my first stop was Burdwan. The origin of the name, Burdwan (Barddhaman), dates back to the 6th century BC and is ascribed to Mahavira (599-627 BCE) the 24th Thirthankar of Jainism. In Burdwan, I met the additional district magistrate and superintendent of police, talked about cancer, regarding my awareness campaign. They reciprocated my enthusiasm, when they came to know that I am bicycle traveller. That night they arranged the irrigation bungalow as my resting place at Burdwan.

My next destination was the city of Durgapur, which is about 68 km from Burdwan. The steel city was developed around 40 years ago as an industrial hub of West Bengal. On my way to the city, I stopped at various dhabas, shops, roadside dwellers to raise awareness against use of tobacco.

That night, I stayed at a local resident’s hospitality. Next day, I covered a distance of 45 km and reached Asansol. This city, once inhabited by the Dravidian and the Australoids in centuries ago, has turned out to be a mining city with a cosmopolitan culture. Here, tobacco addiction rate is quite high. I met the block development officer and local inhabitants to tell them about the harmful side of this particular form of addiction. A local friend of mine helped me a lot regarding my campaign. From Asansol, I visited Kulti, a small sub-divisional town just on the border of Jharkhand.

(Revisit this blog on September 18, 2014, for the next part of Anirban's journey)

Leave your bicycle in the garage to rust!!

(For Nishant, cycling is everything. He takes you out on the road like the days when he hits the tar or the rock on his own with no one to accompany him)

Trust me it does…riding a bicycle sucks.
It takes ages to go somewhere. Most of the time you are sweaty and smelling like a pig. Moreover it's human powered...so you don't have a choice.. you have to pedal and you always get headwinds. There are no bicycle lanes (except a few cities in the world). You are not respected by either a motor vehicle or a pedestrian. You are nuisance for them….gosh!!

If these reasons are not challenging enough…then read on. If not, then you are, well, may be the holiday package guy who loves to reach his destination in an aircraft and enjoy a chauffeur-driven car for sightseeing.

Here are few reasons, why you should leave your cycle in the garage to rust!!

Too much of freedom
Which route should I take --- the off road or the normal motorized one? Should I stay back or keep going? Ahh this is such a nice spot for a camp tonight. I don’t feel like riding today. Let's just chill here or let's set a personal day record --- this kind of freedom is such a terrible feeling. If you don’t like this…stay away from that bike.

It's tooooo slow
You just cannot rush from one spot to another. Instead, you have to endure the pain of watching all the amazing landscapes which you could so simple avoid by a taking a nap in the car or just taking a flight.

Its so damn tiring! Aaaaaaaaa
There is always a headwind and those inclines…uff hills after hills. It is tough to be in shape to tame those hills. Those hills will make you wonder…why why?? It could be so much simpler to just fall asleep in a bus or a train. On a cycle, your brain goes numb and you just can think…your problems disappear…issues with girlfriend, wife, job, boss, politics…who cares…not at least you head…no more stress!! Yes, after a full day ride, you feel so free from stress and you still have energy and sometime more to go on the next day again. Too tiring definitely.

No tourist spots on the way
While on your bicycle, the distances between services and cities is hours and sometimes days apart. This means you may not find any decent restaurant, hotels and you may have to sleep with friendly strangers. You will have to always put up with people whom you have never met before and who promise to always remember you and keep in contact with. So much adventure for what? Meeting real people and eating authentic local food and to know about their life and culture.
Sometime you just don’t want to move any further and set up a tent in middle of nowhere with no lights and no sound. For company is only the Milky Way which you can never see in you polluted city. Now isn’t this really what travelling is all about?

Such good health
A few days back, I met a 94-year-old Bengali gentleman who used to be a cycle tourist and rode 7,500 miles across India in 1939 at a time when the bikes used to be made of iron and literally no roads. If I wasn’t told, I would have easily passed him for a 60-year-old person. He lives alone in a two-storeyed house, does all the household chores himself and was speaking fluently --- telling me thrilling encounters of his riding days.    

Riding a bike makes you kick the butt; push the booze and love life! But isn’t the true enjoyment of life in smoke, hallucinating, hangover and choking your heart… it's so much painful to live longer with a strong beating heart and legs of steel. At an age when people sit around the park talking politics and discussing how soon the world will see the doomsday…cyclist in their 70-80s are roaming the world, scaling every hill, capturing every landscape…
But why take the trouble… everything has its own time… isn’t it??

You cycle and play as a child --- then study --- take up a job--- wife --- have children --- then retire and wait for God to meet you … ohh I missed those family holidays to nearby seaside and hill stations …  Yes.. it's very important to have those family holidays… but what about taking out those few hours for yourself ….for your well-being and your good health... stuff which you wanted to do… but can't because today you are too occupied and stuck midst office, home and family… if you cannot stay fit and hearty …how will you take care of your family then? I m sure we do not want to become sick and dependent and a burden … there is no thrill in that!

Personally, cycling has brought discipline in my life… Days when I cannot workout are bad days…the days when I hit the saddle, I feel I am the KING OF THE ROAD!

(Pictures by Manish Lakhani. He is an explorer, adventurer and a travel photographer. He is an avid cyclist and has completed an incredible solo trip of 14,000km in India covering almost all states in 5 ½ months in 2013. Ladakh is his winter home. For more such mesmerizing pictures visit http://withmanish.com)

Journey friom kick-boxer to cyclist

(Subhajyoti Sen Sharma is a founder-member of Discover on Wheels. A former national-level kick-boxer, he took up cycling as a passion, which took him to places from Sunderbans to Hyderabad.) 

I started cycling when i was in Class V, and certainly it was not easy to keep the balance initially as it happens with every other person. 

Back then, my cycling was primarily for going to school and tuition but when i was in Class XI, i started to fall in love with my age-old Indian cycle. Lately, i found it enjoyable to the core and most importantly the freedom during my rides.

When i learnt that it maintains blood pressure, sugar level, and also build our legs strong like steel, i made a determination to not leave this --- as a mode of transport or as a sport. Before taking up cycling as a sport, i was a kick-boxer at national level. I completed my kick-boxing career and converted my stamina and endurance into cycling. 

On a sultry summer morning in 2013, i met Supratim Pal, a senior cyclist in our city and we had a good ride in various terrain in and around the city. Our common love for bicycles made our journey enjoyable and smoother.

After some days i met Nishant, who also is a good cyclist. Both of us rode several long kilometres to build our health and stamina better. We love to travel and tour on bicycles. I pedalled on to various places like Bakkhali, Bhalkimachan, Jharkhali, Sonakhali (Sunderbans), Bandel, Bansberia and several other places regularly. 

In the first part of my bicycle touring, my touring partner was Biplab with whom i rode all the way to Bakkhali. Later, i found good company in Joynath'da, Supratim, Nishant, Chandranath, Anirban and my brother Sabyasachi.

After some successful trips beyond the boundaries of Kolkata, we decided to open an active cycling club in the city late last year. Thus born Discover on Wheels on the first day of 2014. As i said my focus has always been on sports. With Discover on Wheels, we added cycling to my sports career. In March, we thought to start duathlon in Kolkata. Planning went on for hardly 10 days before we launched it at New Town on April 6, 2014.

Kolkata Duathlon has been our flagship event. The main criteria of the event is that all participants have to run 5 km followed by 15 km of cycling. In the first event only, we got very good response. We continued the duathlon spirits in May also, when i had a podium finish! 

In June, when the duathlon was put on hold because of monsoon, i started preparing for 200 km brevet in Hyderabad. Brevet is nothing but long-distance bicycling that has to be completed within a stipulated time. On July 11, we landed in Hyderabad as a team of Discover on Wheels --- Nishant, Supratim, Abhishek, Chandranath, Ashish and me. That evening i tasted what success is all about --- i learnt i am on the right tracks in cycling as i promoted myself to a randonneur. 

I like speed and hopefully one day we shall witness many more youngsters taking up performance cycling as a serious sport like me. 

STARTING AT 30

(Nishant Maheshwari is the founder-member of Discover on Wheels, the first bicycling club of Kolkata. He comes up with a fascinating story on why and how he started chasing his passion — bicycling — at the age of 30)

I used to be active in sports in childhood days and continued playing cricket till my graduation days. It was only during one winter morning after graduation when I went for light jog, I felt a sharp pain in my back because of wrong footing. Blame the bad roads or whatever. Strangely, after that incident I seemed to have lost shoulder strength. I couldn’t throw a ball properly. Believe me or not, but a casual yawning gave me a stiff neck. So, I had to yawn keep my head straight. Funny!!  

I could not run or play cricket for the next six years. I was detected with problems of frozen shoulder and cervical slip disk. Doctors advised no forward bending and weight-lifting. Pillows were a big no no. I was doing neck exercises and going for physiotherapy with 80-year-olds for company. The acute pain gave me many sleepless nights and off days from office. No sports but weekend parties started making me a big fat miserable shit. I consulted few more specialists but they just prescribed pills which gave me relief for few days but never cured me. It was a waste of years which I could never get back.  At 5'5" weighing 84kg, I was nothing but a pumpkin. 

It was only on my 30th birthday when I was watching a documentary on Discovery about a man who was celebrating his 30th birthday in pub with friends just gets up and started running. He went for a 30-mile run and broke down. He had to call his wife to pick him who thought his husband had lost it. Dean Karnazes today is a ultra-ultra marathoner and continues to inspire millions worldwide. Aahhh!! No I didn’t go running right after watching this on TV. But it certainly shook me up and I decided to give it a try. So it was January 2013 I started doing light short-distance runs and a few stretching yoga exercises. And believe me, I started feeling better. There was no pain after a few days. Still, I was not losing weight because I had no diet control. But the pain was not there and only came back when I was not running. I realized that exercising was warming up the muscles and helping my spasms. 

Once a doctor explained me that going on and off a particular exercise regime gives muscle spasms. Say for example, if you are working out in a gym and then after few months you discontinue because of certain reason. The muscles which you had worked on again become weak and go into slumber. Then after few months again you decide to hit back the gym and start working out. This on and off exercises, especially weight training, can give you muscle spasms – which had exactly happened with me. Adopt a exercise which you can continue for a long term and without breaks. It could be a simple brisk walk also but has to be regular.

Nevertheless, the running which I had started made me active but not fit. I started scouting the blogs, videos, journals for research to do it right. They said – cross-train. The only activity which I could think of was cycling. In younger days, I used to be on my saddle all the time. I used to cycle to school which was 15km away when I used to miss my school bus and sometime I used to miss it on purpose because I loved to RIDE. Yes I loved riding too. And yes I got my first bike in March 2013. An entry-level MTB bike.

Initially, I used to do solo 15-20km rides until I met Subhajyoti Sen Sharma in April 2013 who not only helped me understand biking better but introduced me to the concept of touring on cycle. The first tour was a 120km trip to Diamond Harbour — a port town in south Bengal. I had been there only once before in school days for a day picnic. It was a shocker for my friends and others who just wouldn’t believe that a person could go so far on a cycle. But that was just a beginning.

People's awe was a motivation for me. It was the jaw dropping, believe it or not expressions on people’s face which inspired me and made me a serious rider. Social networking helped me connect with more cyclist nationally and internationally. I am a randonneur today and planning to complete the Super Randonneur series in 2015. 

In India, cyclists, those are mostly 30+, used to ride in a group and adopting cycling as healthy lifestyle. Kolkata at that time did not have any riding group and no riding culture. Cyclists were riding in their colonies or apartment compounds. We wanted to fill the void and give all Kolkata cyclists an opportunity to come together and have some fun in riding. This thought transformed in a Kolkata cycling group called Discover on Wheels which I started in January 2014 with my buddies Supratim Pal, Subhajyoti Sen Sharma and Chandranath Banerjee. On 1st September, 2014, the Facebook group page of Discover on Wheels had 1,500 members, including cyclists and non-cyclists. 

The enthusiasm of the cyclist in Kolkata has continued to inspire and motivate us till date to continue to do something new and fresh. Hope to see Kolkata soon on cycling map of the world.