I carry my luggage down to the bus at 4:30am. Strangely,
no one else is there. We’re supposed to have left by 4:30, and we still have to
load everything on the bus and no one is there. Then Rakesh comes and he’s asking
the same thing I am. I go back to get the rest of the luggage and Rakesh starts
calling people to wake them up.
I return and am at the top of the stairs when I hear from
the bottom, “Yaatrigan kripya dhyaan de. Gaadi no. KL 27 5721, Nagpur to Chanda,
Jago Yuva Bharat Express apne aadharit samay 4:30am se ek ghante ki deri se
chal rahi hai.. Arre utho sab yaar!!”
We finally hit the road a hour and a half later hehe.. Heading out of Nagpur, we pass the ‘Zero Mile’ milestone.
This basically marks the very center of our country. It’s like pinpointing the
middle of our journey with the middle of the country..
On the way to
Chandrapur, we stop for breakfast to find Baba Amte’s Ashram just 5 minutes
away from the dhaba. We went over and got to meet Baba’s wife and see the
Ashram as we passed through it. It was so simple and village like. Like living
with just what you need and be self sufficient in the process. We didn’t get to
stay very long, but whatever little time we did get to spend there was an
experience on its own.
Carmel Academy School in Chandrapur welcomes us with such
gusto it almost knocks us off our feet. Students from classes 5 to 8 are there
and you know how most of the time kids are noisy? These were, but it was like
synchronised. They would shout together
and clap together. It was really
cool! And they had such a blast with Ravi’s Ole
le bit!
They were pretty aware of the issues we were discussing
and it seemed like most of them were already doing something about it,
especially with the environment (Being from the Eco club and all). And they
kept cheering us on as if we were some kind of celebrity team there. Everybody
should get a chance to be cheered like that sometime.. It was awesome!
And as mementos, they gave us these postcards.. The
sweetest things..
We head off to Dilaasagram School closeby and here in the
interaction a girl raises the issue of terrorism. It was the first time on our
journey that anyone had even mentioned terrorism when we spoke about peace and
harmony. She spoke about the attack on
26/11 in Mumbai and how such attacks should just not happen and what we can do
to prevent them. She was almost crying when she was explaining that something
needs to be done about it, she was so affected by it. Coming from someone who
had only seen it on TV or read about it in the papers, that was quite a
moment.. Especially since she was so young and felt so strongly about it.
We come out of the auditorium at Dilaasagram School to
find kinds thronging and crowding our bus so much that we cant get in. Somehow
a couple of us wade through the commotion and get in. Apparently our driver,
Swami chetta, told the kids that Shah
Rukh Khan was inside the bus. It was only Alan, our Production Director, and he
doesn’t even look like Shah Rukh Khan! He’s from Shillong in the North East.
But it didn’t work on the kids! Alan showed us the pictures he took when they
climbed up to the windows and opened the door and climbed in a few steps for a
glance. Hahaha! He got trapped in the bus!
We head towards Mancherial, Andhra Pradesh leaving behind
Maharashtra to move on to the next phase of our journey. 20 km before we reach
our destination, we get a grand welcome by the organising committee of
Mancherial. They welcome us with a whole crowd of people and garlands and teekas and everything. Sister had joked
that she thought that everyone had gathered because of the Telangana issue and
were stopping everyone approaching, in protest. Hehe..
We follow the bike rally all the way to the program venue.
The function was the first one where Rakesh spoke entirely in Hindi. And that
too pure Hindi. It was interesting to hear coz he speaks so many languages but
never heard him speak pure Hindi.
Reminded a little of the watching the Mahabharata on tv..
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