Across the country with a message

KOCHI: For the last four months, Luis Das has been cycling for close to 10 hours a day, camping at railway stations, petrol pumps, ashrams, temples, hospitals, shops and near police stations. He has passed through Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Sikkim, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and has now reached Kerala.  On October 30 last year, Das, who serves at an ashram in Haridwar, had the idea to spread a message to the masses.

He installed a few flex boards on his cycle with a message to use dustbins to avoid littering in public places, and set out on a ‘Bharat Yatra’. The message is simple, but one which people tend to ignore or overlook. Das’ intention was to invite everyone he meets to give it a thought.  “People ask me what benefit I get out of this. However, when they hear that someone has been cycling through the country with the simple advice about dustbins, it stays with them. I felt that doing it in one district or state would not be enough. My goal is to cover every state and union territory in India,” said Das who is currently stationed in Kochi.

When Das stopped at a tea shop, many were seen asking him questions about his journey. The 29-year-old says that this is the case wherever he went.  Originally from Assam, Das has been living at the Mahayogi Pilot Baba Ashram in Haridwar for the past two years. When he expressed his desire to go on an all-India tour, his spiritual guru Mahamandaleshwar Sidharthgiri Maharaj, bought him a cycle. Every day, he starts cycling at 7am in the morning and cycles till 8pm with intermittent breaks in between.

Over the course of his journey, Das has witnessed a lot of littering in the places that he has passed through. “I’ve seen that Puducherry and Vijaywada are relatively clean. But all the other places are dirty. Even in Kerala, there is a lot of waste and littering. Even at shops, there are no dustbins and people throw garbage anywhere and everywhere,” said Das. In Kochi, some well-wishers at a cycle shop near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium gave him shelter as he is awaiting a permit to travel to Lakshwadeep. “I want to create a story about a boy who travelled the entire country to spread awareness about dustbins,” he concluded