“Day 52 was the coldest and the hardest. Visibility down to 20 metres, wet roads, freezing cold headwinds, rain, sleet, snow with a temperature of -6 degrees... The rear wheel of my tandem cycle was deflated. Standing on the side of the road with my head on the seat, I was in tears... The road just broke me today,” Naresh Kumar informs his well-wishers and supporters on a WhatsApp group that doubles as his travel diary.
And yet, after almost two months of cycling, crossing five countries and 5,384 kilometres, and meeting 130 fellow riders, the 35-year-old’s tone on a phone call from Istanbul, is an odd mixture of exhaustion, satisfaction and contentment.
On a sunny morning as February drew to a close, Naresh sat down on his tandem bike alone, with nothing but a rucksack to keep him company on his 90-day cycling expedition to Berlin. The seat behind him was empty: anyone he meets on his journey is welcome to keep him company for a while, as a ‘stoker’ (back rider) to Naresh’s ‘captain’ (front rider).
“The idea of this expedition is to initiate conversations, spread awareness and raise money for people rescued from bonded labour,” says Naresh, who organised it with the help of Rotary Club of Guindy, Chennai.
Headed now towards Greece, his eventual destination is Berlin, where he will be attending a Rotary meeting discussing modern-day slavery. From Chennai in India, he travelled to Oman, UAE, Iran, and now Turkey, where he is crossing the Bosphorus Strait to enter, and cycle again, in Europe. “Did you know Istanbul is the only city in the world to be spread across two continents?” he asks. Once in Europe, he will be crossing Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Slovakia, Austria, Czech Republic and finally Germany. This route, and his current live location, is mapped out on his Freedom Seat India-Germany website, that asks, ‘Where is Kindness?’. Kindness, you see, is the name of his tandem bike.
Stories are his fuel
Through 38 degrees of sweltering summers in India to slick sheets of rain in Iran, and negative degrees of snowfall in Turkey: if there is one thing that has fuelled Naresh and his cycle along the way, it is the kindness of strangers. These are stories he is always eager to share. Stories he has meticulously noted down in his journal. Stories he plans to turn into a book someday.
“Near Erbaa, Turkey, it rained for 12 hours non-stop, I stopped at a petrol pump, with a café attached, and decided to spend the night there. While I was drinking Turkish tea after tea, I struck up a conversation with an old man and told him about my journey. He refused to let me sleep there and invited me to his house,” he recalls. “I slept on his sofa, and in the morning, he made me a breakfast from his organic farm. Just like a father, he accompanied me back to the highway and cycled with me for a while. Then he gave me a tight hug and said, ‘I am not on any social media but if you ever come back, you are most welcome’.”
Naresh has travelled with children as young as five to adults as old as 70, and distances as far as 27 kilometres. Not speaking the same language was never a problem; Google translate was always a tap away. Moreover, he says, not language but “vulnerability is the key to human connection. Even if you can’t converse, there is a very comfortable silence as you pedal along.”
Describing yet another incident in Sirjan, Iran, where he was hosted by a shepherd’s family in their clay house, when he was stranded under a tree in the middle of the pouring rain, he says, “You always read about Persian hospitality, but you can never truly appreciate it until you experience it.”
Naresh has been cycling 130 kilometres on an average each day. “The scenic beauty of Erzincan in Turkey is simply stunning,” he says, adding, “As is the Western Ghats in India.”
In the initial phase, when he was in Vellore, he recalls how he had to travel kilometres to buy water. “A coconut seller very kindly filled my four bottles with coconut water. He wouldn’t even accept money for it.”
He survives on local delicacies, listening to his body’s needs instead of a strict diet plan. “If in South India it would be idli, dosa or pongal, and poha, and vada pav in Maharashtra, it would be kebabs and bread in Iran.” Despite filling up on calories, he has lost 10 kilograms so far. After all, he has been pulling a weight — cycle, rucksack and gear together — of 40 kilograms.
Nights are spent either at the shelter of kind hosts, or in motels, or under the open sky — ‘a 1000-star hotel,” he jokes. “After all the hard work of the day, wherever you are, you sleep like a baby.”
You can follow Naresh Kumar on freedomseat.org