: Five men, one SUV, a bike, 29 states in 29 days, and one country; that’s the story of Mahendra Patel and his friends who are on a whistle stop tour of what they call ‘One India’.
“In the thick of agitation by Jats in Haryana and Patels in Gujarat, I realised that we don’t think of ourselves as Indians — we think as people of this region or that. Or one community or the other and in that chaos, I thought of this trip. How about creating a message that talks about India as one?” says Mahendra Patel, a realtor, who is zipping across the country along with four other friends.
The travellers stopped in Hyderabad and shared their experiences on Thursday. Documenting the journey is Archit Prajapati, a photographer. “Surprisingly, language hasn’t been a problem. We could get by using signs but there were funny moments as in Kanyakumari we were called by a coconut vendor. We thought he wanted to share it with us, but he wanted us to buy a ticket for the vehicle,” says Anil Gemawat.
While four gentlemen are travelling on an SUV, one of them, Alpesh Shah is driving a Royal Enfield bullet: “The largest number of speed bumps we encountered are between Bhopal and Mumbai. The roads in southern part of the country are much better than elsewhere,” says Mr. Shah.
