Akram
Feroze has been travelling by cycle through the states of Andhra
Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala for the past
one-and-a-half years
On
March 22, 2012, Akram Feroze, 24, was cycling in a hilly area, near
Diglipur, in the Andaman Islands. He rode fast, so that he could get
the momentum downhill to go uphill in the next section. However,
suddenly, he came across a sharp bend. “I saw it very late,” he
says. Akram went straight ahead, and hit a bank of dry leaves.
Unfortunately, behind it was a slope, and he went down 20 feet. “I
was lucky not to be seriously injured, but the cycle was permanently
damaged,” he says.
He
was taken to the nearby Community Health Centre, but was released,
after receiving first aid. Realising that his cycle was beyond
repair Akram posted a message on his Facebook site, 'The Cycle
Natak', that his cycle was damaged. “There are many people who are
following my page,” says Akram. Soon contributions came in. Some
donated Rs 100, while others went as high as Rs 5,000. In the end he
got Rs 25,000 and bought a brand-new GT Transeo cycle.
One-and-a-half
years ago, Akram set out on an all-India tour. “I wanted to see
first-hand what is there beyond the borders of my town,” says the
youth, who grew up in the small town of Jagtial in Karim Nagar
district in Andhra Pradesh. Not surprisingly, it took Akram two
months to persuade his father, MA Shukoor, a building contractor,
and his mother, Shiraz Sultana, a principal in a government school,
to give permission.
Once
he is accepted, the villagers invite him to stay. Most of the time,
he goes to the houses of the poor. He remembers living with Manickam,
60, a manual scavenger, near Trichy. There was just one plastic chair
in the room. “It took me an hour to convince him that he was elder
to me and needed to sit on the chair, while I should sit on the
floor,” says Akram.
Sadly,
Akram confirms that the caste system is still going strong. “I have
not seen the upper castes treating the Dalits with dignity anywhere
in Tamil Nadu or Andhra Pradesh,” he says. “But in Kerala, the
situation is much better.”
Interestingly,
when people realise that Akram is on an all-India journey they will
give him Rs 30 or Rs 50 and say that in case he is going to the
Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti Dargah
at Ajmer or the Tirupati temple, he should give a donation and pray
for them.
“People
are quite religious,” says Akram. “In every house that I visited,
there were religious symbols – pictures or idols of gods and
goddesses – no matter how shattered the structure was. People live
on hope, even though their lives are very difficult. Praying to God
provides mental relief.”
In
some villages, Akram would stay for a couple of days and then set out
for the next village. He travels light: three T-shirts and a couple
of tracksuits. “I have to tell you frankly that I stink most of the
time,” he says. “I wash my clothes in streams and ponds, so you
can imagine how clean it can be.”
Sometimes,
he gets gifts out of the blue. The GoGreen GoCycling organisation saw
Akram's Facebook page and couriered a T-shirt for him at Madurai with
a message, 'This is a token of appreciation from us'.
As
Akram travels around, he is getting a deeper understanding of India .
“Poverty still exists,” he says. “The upper classes are
improving rapidly, but the process is much slower for the lower
castes. There are too many dropouts at the primary school level. It
is going to be a huge problem for the country.”
As
of now, Akram has no problems and plans to carry on, with no time
limit, till his wanderlust is satiated. “I have no idea when I am
going to stop,” he says, while on a brief stop-over in Kochi , on
his way to the Lakshadweep islands. “I am enjoying myself
enormously.”
(Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)
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