Waiting 18 to 20 hours between meals, not knowing when, where, how or who would get him the next meal, Ajay Krishnan says, he learnt to remember people’s faces. “With gratitude.” A solo traveller, this trip was different from his earlier motorcycle trips. He backpacked mostly penniless for close to two months, depending only on the kindness of others.
Having completed his civil engineering course from the Sree Narayana Guru College of Engineering (SNGCE, Kolenchery), he couldn’t wait to set out again. He wanted to travel to the 12 Jyotirlingas (Siva temples) in the country, “It is not about me being religious, it was more about a pattern. And I definitely did not intend on travelling penniless, my plan was more like low budget travel. But once the idea of travelling penniless came, it stayed.”
The experience of a month and half is one that will stay, he says. Last December he travelled, solo, on his Royal Enfield Thunderbird motorcycle to Kaza in Himachal Pradesh’s Spiti valley. An easy journey compared to the uncertainty of the adventure he had embarked upon. “There were many variables and uncertainties which made this trip more an adventure.”
The month and a half long journey was an eye-opener for the youngster from Koothattukulam. “There were two stock reactions to my endeavour, either ‘why are you doing this?’ or ‘what you are doing in great!’ Many people couldn’t understand why I, an engineer, would embark upon something like this. There are so many stories, so many people, so many lives...this trip was unlike any other trip to experience life.”
He set off, from Ernakulam South, on July 10 with less than ₹200 in his pocket, on a train running several hours behind schedule, to Madurai. His destination was Rameshwaram, he got off at Vallinokam, 100-odd kilometres short of Rameshwaram, unable to bear the train’s speed or the lack of it. The usually two hour trip took him close to seven hours. It set the unhurried mood of the trip where destinations came up on him slowly as he criss crossed the country —Chennai, Srisailam, Hyderabad, Vizag, Puri, Konarak, Bhubhaneshwar, Kolkata, Deogarh, Varanasi, Omakareshwar, Lumbini (Nepal) and Somnath among others.
His backpack carried a tent and other paraphernalia, so finding a place to sleep wasn’t a problem and most of the journey happened at night. He travelled by road as getting a lift was easier. He went off the grid completely and stayed off social media. “I would occasionally call home from a land phone to let my family know I was well.”
It wasn’t all free, he worked along the way too. At a teashop in Puri, he worked for a few hours and earned ₹200. “The owner was generous, I agree, ₹ 20 can get you a lot there - 10 pooris and subji; for ₹ 3 a glass of tea. I was very tempted to stay on there,” Ajay jokes. At Hyderabad, he pushed a motorbike to a fuel station for ₹ 20 - he spent ₹13 on Irani chai and biscuits, “the bike owner paid for my entry ticket into Charminar ₹5. I never asked for more than I needed. Money allows many luxuries, without the safety it affords it teaches you to trust people.” He had his ATM card on him, but didn’t want to use unless it was an emergency.
Ajay reached Puri, around the time of the Jagannath Rath Yatra (mid-July), at Deogarh (Jharkhand) it was the holy month of shravan , at Varanasi he saw the Ganga arthi... “I saw so many shades of kaavi (ochre), and so many forms of devotion.” He couldn’t make it to Kedarnath, “that I’ll do in my 80s,” he says. During the course of the journey he lost seven kilos as he was eating sporadically.
He met two Malayalis, at Konarak and Srisailam. “The guy I met at Konarak commented on my appearance, in Malayalam, without realising I was a Malayali. He was startled when I responded,” Ajay says.
One phone call home, in mid-August, ended his trip abruptly. “I was clueless about the flood back home. My family told me it was raining heavily and that the shutters of dams would be lifted, but not in my wildest dreams did I imagine this disaster. I was shocked and I had to return. I couldn’t get in touch with my friends in Aluva and thereabouts. I returned around August 18 and got involved in the volunteer effort. This was the one time that my parents told me to take my time coming home.”
