Kovai lads pedal to Kargil to pay tribute to war hero

Coimbatore: Inspired by the valour of Kargil hero Captain Vikram Batra after watching Bollywood movie Shershaah, two youths from Coimbatore city pedalled their way to reach the Kargil War Memorial.
Surendar Nagaraj, a P N Palayam-based professional equestrian and his neighbour S Sanjeev, a postgraduate student, who started their journey from Kanyakumari on October 4, reached the memorial on Thursday.
The duo wanted to reach the memorial in 15 days to set a record. They underwent rigorous training to clock up to 180km/day. Although they could not finish the trip in 15 days due to bad weather, they are hopeful of entering the Asian Book of Records and Limca Book of Records.
“We initially wanted to visit Khardung La, but decided on the war memorial after watching Shershaah. We dedicated the trip to Vikram Batra, who captured point 5140 during the Kargil war,” Surender told TOI.
They reached Khardung La in a vehicle and from there, pedalled to Leh. “We had carried 5,000 seed balls and dispersed them on the way. We carefully chose seeds of 23 indigenous tree varieties. We gave some seed balls to farmers we met along the way and they planted them on their lands,” he said.