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)