Girls are as good as boys in everything, says eight-year-old Raavi Badesha. Raavi’s words cannot be dismissed as just talk for this class 2 student is at the fag end of a challenging 4,700-km bicycle ride from Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
Raavi, accompanied by her father who is also a cyclist, has been riding her bicycle across the country to create awareness of ‘Save the girl child,’ besides that of ‘Green India, Clean India.’ She is an icon for ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ in Patiala, Punjab, from where she hails.
The young cyclist who reached the State capital past noon on Tuesday did not seem to be showing many signs of exhaustion after nearly two months of pedalling from the north to the south of the country. But then Raavi has been cycling since the age of four. “I feel tired sometimes, but I do not think about it much. I just massage my muscles if I feel a twinge or something and am good to go.”
This is not the first time that Raavi, named after the river Ravi, has embarked on such a daunting mission. In the summer of 2022, she had cycled from Shimla to Manali along the Spiti circuit — a distance of 800 km in 20 days.
Raavi began her latest journey from Lal Chowk in Srinagar on November 10. But on November 29, it got disrupted when her father sustained injuries after a truck hit his bicycle in an accident near Shivpuri in Madhya Pradesh. It was only on December 12 that they could resume the ride, which will carry on from Kanyakumari to end at Dhanushkodi on January 14.
Simranjit Singh, Raavi’s father who serves in the Anti-terrorism Squad of the Punjab Police, says he introduced her to other sports such as swimming, but it was cycling that she took a liking to. When Raavi began riding independently, she would cover more than 50 km at a time. So then he began trying to build up her stamina by riding uphill with her to Kasauli and Shimla. She got into the India Book of Records. In 2021, she won a race in Ludhiana.
Raavi finds the latest ride more challenging than the Shimla-Manali one. Nature, she says, has a very positive vibe in the hills. But this latest ride covered the plains mostly, and that can get very boring, she says.
Mr. Singh hopes Raavi would be able to train at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala to achieve professional growth in cycling.
For her part, Raavi wants to become a judge though she is keen to continue cycling. “I want to tell children to stop watching mobile phones too much, select a favourite sport, or if they can’t take up sports at least start walking.”
For the moment though, she is looking forward to the plane ride home after the ride ends and being reunited with her younger sister and mother.
