This is an article by invitation. In June 2023, Delhi-based ultrarunner, Shikha Pahwa, participated in the year’s edition of UTMB Mozart 100. She was the lone participant from India and completed the race in 19 hours, 56 minutes and 39 seconds. Herein is Shikha’s account of the run; in her words:
The UTMB Mozart 100 was not on my radar.
It happened by chance.
My plan was to go to Italy and I was looking for a race in or around Italy on very specific dates. The only one I found was Mozart 100 in Salzburg, Austria.
Seen on the race website it looked like an extremely scenic run (this was where The Sound of Music was shot after all). City roads, mountains, river, vast green fields, it had it all; enough to tempt me. Plus, the date was perfect. Looking at the distance options, as usual, I scrolled down to the longest one; 105k it said. Doable I thought. The cut-off was 22 hours which should have made me curious as it seemed liberal compared to some other races but I took it at face value. I knew this was a race with some crazy elevation but what I ignored or rather didn’t understand was the extent of trail and the grade of trail involved. I signed up. It appeared a done deal.
I started training around three months before the race with focus more on mileage. Since Delhi is flat, training for elevation is a challenge. My trainer Krishan Tiwari trained me like he had for the Ladakh runs of the past. There was a lot of resistance training to give the climbing feel, some walking-running with a weighted jacket, in addition to strength training and consecutive long runs. All this in the Delhi summer was completely draining and combined with my regular work, it exhausted me 100 percent. But that’s how ultrarunning (and training) is – never-ending runs irrespective of time, weather and terrain.
Fast forward to race day. I reached the start point at 4:30AM (5AM start). With 700 participants arrived, the place looked like a festival! None of my earlier ultra runs had witnessed such a big crowd and they all looked like experienced trail runners. I was very intimidated and what got me really worried was the one common thing all of them had – trekking poles (the ones used for trail running are light and collapse to really small dimension for ease of carrying).
Photo: courtesy Shikha Pahwa
That was when it hit me that I may have got myself into something I wasn’t ready for. Forget getting poles, I had never used them! I was a 100 per cent road runner, so poles had never been needed. The one trail run I did attempt had featured a technical trail and it had ended up with me injured and a DNF to my credit. I therefore had no fond memories of trail. But now, I was at the start line of my first international race and there was no turning back. The race began and the first few kilometres were flat. It seemed to go well until I saw an arrow indicating a turn into the bushes. And there it began – not flat, not straight…just pure rocky trail.
It was a narrow path and the whole lot of us going up on it. So, we had to form a queue. Wherever there was the tiniest space on the sides, some runners would overtake. Gradually the fast runners disappeared from view. Still, more and more people kept overtaking. Their training showed in the way they moved; smooth steps, almost without much thought. Me on the other hand watched every step, holding on to branches to pull myself up where the step was too high. Around four or five kilometres into the trail I realised that I couldn’t keep using my hands for support. I needed to find my version of trekking poles. I picked a stick fallen on the ground. It took me a few attempts to find the right one; right height, weight and grip. It wasn’t perfect but helped. My free hand was still used for extra support of course.
Given 5000 meters elevation for the race, the climbs were intense. This was just the first one, there were eight or nine more. In my mind I assumed there were five in all. I don’t know how I got that but it threw me off when they just kept coming.
Climbing up was hard and although there were faster runners, there were many around me proceeding at a pace similar to mine. So, I wasn’t all that slow. Where I did really feel disadvantaged was in the downhill sections. Usually, downhill is where I make up for lost time (and that’s because I had done mostly road runs). But here it was much slower than the climbs. It was also terrifying as one wrong step could send me rolling down the rocks or into the rocks or worse. The other runners just ran down as I would on road. It showed how experienced they were. I took my time and went as slowly as I needed to go. Others overtaking me at this stage, didn’t matter at all. I was quite okay coming in last as long as I finished without injury. Besides, somehow, I was managing to catch up with the same people on the next climb. It showed, my training did work after all.
A slower pace in this race was not a concern, I just needed to be fast enough to reach the various cut-off points along the course within the set deadline. Failure to do so was an immediate disqualification from the race. So it had to be planned in advance and I had asked my everything-ultrarunning guide Dr. Rajat Chauhan (founder and race director of La Ultra The High) for help. Everything-ultrarunning because he had answers to all the questions, I had about long distance running in the past few years, especially when it came to the whole “ mental preparation’’ bit. He was kind enough to go through the route map in detail and advise on how to pace myself to make it to the finish line in time.
Photo: courtesy Shikha Pahwa
Going one step at a time and pushing myself mentally, I kept moving ahead. Because of the terrain my feet kept twisting to the side. Luckily no injuries there. I did trip three times along the way which gave me bruises on both knees and hands but no internal damage. The bigger problem came once it got dark. Finding my way with just the headlamp required a lot more focus but the fatigue and bruises weren’t allowing me to do so. The downhills looked even more dangerous in the dark. I was left alone after everyone ran down. To make it worse, my headlamp started acting up. It suddenly got dim and I had no backup. It looked like it could die at any point, so I quickened my steps and hoped for the best. Once I got down, there were some people around so I could see better.
The official race distance was 106 kilometres and according to my watch it wasn’t far. Then I spied a road ahead and an aid station; I could feel the finish coming up. Looking for signs of finish, I started to jog. The road turned into the trees again and up we went! Some more up and down and we returned to a road again. The GPS was off because 106 kilometres was already done for me. Now I could see some signs of finish and hear some people in the distance. Finally, I was closing in on the last stretch and some twists and turns in the road. I found a place to put my stick down. Then, I saw my sister cheering for me, then running behind me and I finally saw the finish line. My watch showed 109 kilometres. It wasn’t a distance I hadn’t done before but this terrain made it ten times harder. It was more of a mental race for me, especially since I wasn’t prepared for it. I was way out of my comfort zone, so a rank of 420 out of 700 and being the only Indian participant felt great.
(The author, Shikha Pahwa, is a Delhi-based entrepreneur and ultrarunner)
This is an article by invitation. Earlier this year, Jeevendra Singh completed the 2023 Spartathlon, a footrace traversing a mix of road, trail and mountain path for 246 kilometres. The race held in Greece follows in the footsteps of the Greek messenger Pheidippides, said to have run from Athens to Sparta to convey news of the Greek victory over the Persians, at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC. The race is among the most famous ones around. It is also a challenging race. Jeevendra completed it in 32 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds. The following is his personal account:
I grew up in a village near Agra. My father worked with Indian Railways and he was posted at Tundla. Growing up in a village meant living an outdoorsy life. I was into sports during my schooling years. I did my engineering degree from Lucknow and through campus placement found myself at the Pune office of UBS. From there I moved to Singapore, Poland and finally to UK, in 2015. Initially, I lived in London. I was following an unhealthy lifestyle. My health deteriorated mainly because of the stress that accompanies work at an investment bank. I piled on a lot of weight.
I decided to take charge of my life and took to running. The solitude of running helped me heal and gave me much-needed ` me time.’ My running was largely recreational. I started participating in running events with the aim to raise funds for causes such as cancer research and the fight against domestic violence, among others. I did a few marathons including the Athens Classic Marathon, marathons in Marrakesh, Peru and San Francisco. I even ran a marathon wearing full cricket gear to raise funds. My aim was to run a marathon in every continent but I gave up that idea when I became aware of climate change and realised that flying just to run a marathon, was not the correct thing to do.
I then embarked on trail running, starting with a half marathon in the south of England. I moved to ultra distances in trail running, attempting a few trail races in the mountains of Lake District. I love trail running and since 2018 I have done only trail running. Living in London and running around on roads and pavements takes a toll on you. Don’t get me wrong, London is one of the beautiful cities in the world with lot of green areas. Yet the city running was becoming monotonous for me. So, when I stumbled on to trail running and did my first trail race, which was the Beachy Head half marathon in the beautiful Seven Sisters Cliffs near Eastbourne, I was hooked to it. Purely because being in nature triggered the genetic memory, we all have in us. Being in nature, moving on your foot for hours in these beautiful landscapes gives our body and mind that experience which our ancestors naturally had thousands of years ago. Also, for me being in the country side triggered the happy childhood memories I had with my grandparents and uncles in my village back home in India. Slowly I wanted more and more of this. Moreover, I believe in continuous progression. Therefore, I wanted to see if I can run longer than a marathon in these landscapes. That’s when I decided to do my first ultramarathon, the Grand Tour of Skidaw, which happens in Lake District, UK. It was a 70km-long race in challenging terrain but the views and scenery were breath-taking. I never looked back after that. From there i moved to 50milers (I did three of those) and then to my first 100 miler in 2021.
In 2020, the world came to a halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the lockdown was lifted, I did a run from Buckingham Palace to Windsor Castle, a distance of over 50 km. In 2021, I did the South Downs Way 100, a 100 miler. There were many elite athletes at the start line and that was quite inspiring. I wanted to do well. I ended up in the top 20, covering the distance in 19:10:39 hours. In August of the same year, my mother passed away. I hit a low and lost my motivation to run. Slowly I resumed running and realised that it was helping me heal. I wanted to take on something challenging. I decided to do Spartathlon. To my mind it was a journey that would help me go inward and deal with my grief. I had the South Downs Way 100 as a qualifying race. The qualifying time required to enrol for Spartathlon was a 100-miler race done in 21 hours. For Spartathlon, I did much of my training on the pavements, roads and parks of London. For exposure to trails, I travelled to Lake District where I ran in the lower mountain ranges. But the days leading to Spartathlon were extremely stressful. My wife’s father was ill and I nearly contemplated missing the race. But my wife asked me to go to Greece while she flew to India to be with her parent. Radhika, my wife, is a lifestyle and nutrition consultant. She helps with my nutrition plan for day to day living and also for races. She is a qualified yoga teacher and mental health coach. Except my running, she coaches me for everything else.
I flew to Greece. The race day started well after Radhika called me to say that her father had improved and was likely to be discharged from the hospital. At the start line of Spartathlon, I was the only Indian runner. It felt good to be around super-fit elite athletes. I did have a few minutes of doubts but quickly brushed them aside. Over its first few miles, the race leaves Athens, traversing through the city’s suburbs and stretch of factories. After 13 miles, we hit the coastline. There are 75 check points along the route. Every check point has a cut-off time. We were expected to hit the 50-mile mark in nine and a half hours. The start of the run was tough as temperatures were quite high and I got dehydrated leading to stomach issues. I reached the 50-mile mark with just 15 minutes to spare and that was not good. I felt stressed and doubts began to creep in. I kept saying the words: stay calm and cool. I was doing this race solo without any crew. I reached the 100-mile mark. I desperately needed a reset. At that point I ran into Graeme Boxall, an accomplished ultra runner and one of the nicest fans of the sport in the UK. He is ever present at track ultras volunteering or crewing for runners. He has given so much of his time and energy to the sport. I had met Graeme at a few track ultras earlier and got to know him. When he met me around the 110 km-point in the Spartathlon race, I was in a pretty bad shape. His encouragement was just what I needed to come out of that bad patch. He was crewing for another runner. Graeme gave me a recovery drink and helped me reset. I changed my clothes and set out.
Jeevendra Singh (photo: courtesy Jeevendra)
As I progressed into the race, my stomach situation improved. Also, the temperature started to lower. Further, the buffer between my arrival time and the cut-off time, started to increase. The night was clear and running through the vineyards and olive farms laden with silhouettes, was like a dream. For nutrition and hydration, I switched to soup and Coke. Then came the uphill mountainous stretch. It was quite tough but at the top I felt a connection with my late mother. The descent was tougher than the ascent. The path downhill was laden with loose rocks and scree. I decided to walk down instead of running it. As I started to descent, I began to feel better. For the next 20 miles my pace was quite good. I crossed many runners along the route. At dawn I was running through vineyards in Tegea. The route was headed to Sparta. It started to get warm. This time, I was careful with my hydration. The last stretch was mostly downhill. At Sparta, people were very passionate about the race. As I kept running, I heard them shout: Bravo. The city was packed with supporters cheering for each and every runner. There were children and youngsters running or cycling with us. I met a woman who had been volunteering for the race for the past 41 years. Just before the finish line, I stopped before the statue of King Leonidis and then, finally hit the finish line. In my mind, the 246 km race was split into three phases. The first phase was Be Calm, the second phase was Curious (it was mostly through the night) and the third phase was Confident and Belief.
The Swedish team was very helpful and friendly with me. They kept a seat for me at dinner, among many other friendly gestures. I am right now in the process of recovering both physically and emotionally. The race was quite demanding. I want to continue doing trail and mountain runs. More importantly, I want to be a much better athlete.
(The author, Jeevendra Singh is a runner who works with an investment bank in the UK)
For Ashish Kasodekar, this was the case with a project he undertook in late 2021.
Starting November 28 that year, he had run 61 marathons over 61 consecutive days. The venue was Pune University. A route had been fleshed out on its campus and eight loops of it was equal to a marathon. Few would have doubted Ashish’s capacity to complete the project; he is among the best-known ultrarunners from India. What amazed Ashish and fuelled his motivation for those two months was the support provided by others who turned up to run and keep him company. In November 2021, the pandemic was still a recent phenomenon and restrictions hadn’t been relaxed fully. Yet people arrived. Their presence gave Ashish, who was running the same five kilometre-loop for two months, something to look forward to, every day. He recalls that in that period, never once did he require a morning alarm to wake up and go to the venue. The motivation level was that good. “ It was the most beautiful thing in my life,’’ he said of the project, which showed him what a supportive human community meant. For the purpose of Guinness Records, the number of days and marathons was kept as 60 (the previous record at that time was 59). The additional one day of running was a case of testing himself after the 60 day-period.
From the impression this project left in Ashish’s mind, was born another – a quest to link a low point in geography to a high point. Initially, he imagined the run on a grand – maybe even, audacious – scale. He could try running from the Dead Sea in West Asia (it is bordered by Jordan, Israel and Palestine’s West Bank) to the Himalaya in South Asia. At over 1400 feet below sea level, the shores of the Dead Sea represent the lowest elevation on land on the planet while the Himalaya hosts its highest peaks. He also saw in the play of words framing the project, a segway to addressing the issue of mental depression, a condition spoken of as perhaps the most widespread problem of our troubled times. “ I wasn’t expecting anyone to be cured and feeling high at the end of such a long run. I was hoping, I could convince people to enjoy the running and enjoy the passage from a low point to a high,’’ Ashish said. Physical activity like running is known to release endorphins that contribute to an improved sense of well-being. As Ashish’s project encountered reality, the angle around mental wellbeing, survived. The one attempting to connect Dead Sea and the Himalaya, stayed still born. There was a reason for it.
Ashish progressively realized that the route spanning half a continent, was a political minefield. He would be running through countries that had experienced conflict or were still trapped in conflict and by the time he reached Pakistan, there would be the frosty, unpredictable ties between India and Pakistan to negotiate. True, a project of this sort may help set a new tone for politics and understanding between people but the variables over such a long and volatile route were too many. For instance, at the time he thought of the project, Ashish didn’t have reason to worry excessively about the Levant. By October 2023, there was full scale confrontation between Israel’s armed forces and Hamas.
Ashish’s project didn’t die. Instead, after his run at the 2022 Badwater Ultramarathon in the US, Low2High (as the project came to be called) got underway in a different format. To begin with, there appeared to be no problem accessing the Himalaya in India or Nepal. So, the aspect of “ high’’ was trouble-free. “ Low’’ demanded reimagination. For the lowest point in geography, Ashish decided to search within India. West Asia’s Dead Sea was thus replaced with Kerala’s Kuttanad, which is officially the region with least elevation in India. Located in central Kerala and long famed for its paddy cultivation, Kuttanad is among the few places in the world where farming happens four to ten feet below sea level. It was decided to run from Kuttanad to Umling La in Ladakh, which at 19,024 feet is currently the highest motorable pass in the world. It was also decided to cover the distance in 76 days, so that the finish coincided with India’s 76th Independence Day on August 15, 2023. Alongside, an app was designed whereby in a repeat of the community support Ashish had enjoyed in his project of 61 marathons in 61 days, a host of people who downloaded the app were visualized aggregating 76 lakh kilometres in their daily exercise sessions. The ambitious figure of 76 lakh kilometres didn’t have to come via running alone. It could be from walking, jogging or cycling – the idea being to create a mutually engaged, supportive ecosystem for the duration of the project. The punchline was: be together, achieve together and celebrate together, all of it couched in the larger paradigm of a nation being fit if each one is physically fit.
Ashish’s own target of 76 days to project-completion required him to cover 55 kilometres every day and repeat it daily without a break. Given his background in ultrarunning, both seemed doable. Prior to this project, Ashish had – among major events – run the 333km and 555km races of La Ultra The High, Brazil 135, Badwater 135 and the 61×61 event at Pune University. Ashish commenced Low2High from Kainakary in Kuttanad, on June 1, 2023. Traditionally, that is the day when the south west monsoon hits India, the southern tip of Kerala being where it manifests first. In 2023, the onset of the annual rains (Kerala has two seasons of it every year) was tad delayed. But the pre-monsoon build-up was palpable and the early days of the run were wrapped in heat and humidity (pre-monsoon-Kerala can be quite humid). As Ashish ran northward, the monsoon slowly caught up from behind. The first rain he experienced on the run, struck in Karnataka on June 11; it poured. He did 50-55 kilometres in that weather. Ashish’s daily schedule was simple. He would start running by about 6AM; after 10 kilometres he would take a tea-break, after 21 kilometres there would be breakfast. Lunch was at around 1.30PM. He would conclude his run by 4PM. It was a mix of running and walking. By 10PM, he would go to sleep. For the first 25-30 days, he covered roughly 60 kilometres every day. Twenty three days after starting from Kainakary in Kuttanad, Ashish reached Pune, his home town.
At Umling La (photo: courtesy Ashish Kasodekar)
Each place he passed through, left an impression. Kerala was generally clean with good local roads to run on but irritated in the early stages of the journey with its heavy traffic. In Maharashtra, traffic made the Thane-Ghodbunder stretch tough. “ Haryana was action packed. Everyone wanted to know what I was trying to do,’’ Ashish said. There were minor physical problems. After 40-45 days of running, one evening, there was pain in his leg. It was tackled. For three days, in the wake of that leg pain, he opted to walk 50 kilometres. He had an ice bath every day. The support team traveling alongside in a vehicle found a place to stay and secured the ice. His support team included his younger brother Amit, Rishikesh Gaikwad and Harikrishnan Damalpati. Every 15 days, Ashish did a medical test. Electrolyte levels and kidney functioning were checked. Along the way, there were social engagements too. Ashish and his team distributed 35 fitness kits (each contained items like footballs and skipping ropes) to various schools; they also gave talks. By the time Ashish reached Punjab, the heavy rains that caused havoc in Himachal Pradesh in 2023, had happened. His route had to be reconfigured here and there depending on road condition and which roads stayed open. He reached Umling La on schedule, on August 15, having covered 4003 kilometres in 76 days. Notes kept by the team show that almost half the distance covered was on NH48. Second was NH3 with roughly 450 kilometres. The notes also reveal the team’s frustration with traffic at various points.
Project Low2High lived up to expectations. Except perhaps in one department – the app found roughly 8000 subscribers and their cumulative mileage was quite short of the 76 lakh kilometres originally envisaged. However, the real take away from Low2High is the template and ideation (for example, within Kerala itself, runners could imagine linking Kuttanad to the highlands of Idukki). As Ashish pointed out, his interactions with people during the journey told him that when it came to fitness, everyone from an IT professional to a truck driver, faced the same challenge of not having the time for exercise or lacking motivation for the same. With an engaging journey for central theme and the model of a community motivated enough to keep him company, he believes he can contribute his bit to get people moving.
It was early October, 2023. “ So, what’s next?’’ I asked as we reached the end of our chat, at his house in Pune.
“ I would like to try the Barkley Marathon,’’ Ashish said referring to the race in Tennessee, rated as a difficult ultramarathon with a history of few finishers.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai)
It is not always that one finds a cycling story behind a simple recommendation on food.
I did and it was more than cycling that I found; it was the story of an interesting existence.
Early September 2023, a bid to contain one’s cost of living in Leh, saw freelance journalist search for Ladakhi food. I knew from past experience that it may prove futile for as has happened in many tourist-destinations, in Leh too, the culinary preference of outsiders overshadows what is locally consumed. One finds stylish cafes and restaurants catering to the taste buds of moneyed visitors who expect what they like everywhere they go and are willing to pay for it. It’s one of the call signs of new India; life resembles an airport – hunger is addressed not by eating affordable food but by demonstrating that one has the capacity to afford no matter what the cost.
Still, given my need had been whittled down to just the local bread or something similarly basic, I was hopeful of defiant culinary islands holding out against market forces. My search for Ladakhi food brought me to a kitchen at one end of Leh’s market and a conversation with the owners who highlighted the nutritional and economic sense in local food but admitted they too had succumbed to the new trend. “ It is affordable and it is nutritious,” the lady in the kitchen said before throwing her hands up to signal larger forces at play. There wasn’t a market big enough to support an eatery focused on Ladakhi food. On the bright side, the conversation was good. It’s the usual case, when two parties equally disappointed with contemporary drifts, meet. The kitchen had one customer. He sat there eating, quietly. At the end of my chat with the owner of the enterprise, the customer recommended that I try a kitchen elsewhere in town, which continued to offer local cuisine. That’s how I met Nilanjan. I was contemplating what to do, at the junction where Zangsti Road met Changspa Road and Sankar Road, when he emerged from the eatery. In season of Ladakh Marathon, his physicality hinted of cyclist. A short Q&A proved it right. A few days later, we conversed over lunch at a dhaba nearby.
An only child, Nilanjan Guha Majumder grew up in Uttarpara, Kolkata. His father worked with Customs & Central Excise; his mother was a housewife and entrepreneur. He did his schooling at Amarenda Vidyapith. He took to swimming when he was eight years old. Cycling was an early entrant to his life; it was his mode of transport in Uttarpara, famous for hosting Hindustan Motors, manufacturers of the Ambassador car, an icon of the India before economic liberalization. During his school days, Nilanjan loved playing cricket and featured in competitions up to the district level. College changed all that. Life became focused on academics (he still found time for volleyball and athletics). He graduated in computer studies from an institution in Bengaluru and then followed that up with a masters from Kolkata. Then, he joined Tech Mahindra in Pune. He also took a transfer back to Kolkata.
From Nilanjan’s rides in Ladakh / en route to Mahe, returning from Hanle (photo: Nilanjan Guha Majumder)
In 2007, he married his long-time girlfriend, who he knew from his schooldays. He shifted employment to Cognizant. Then, a while later, tragedy struck. Over five years spanning 2010 to 2015, both his parents and his grandmother, passed away. That was three people close to him, gone. “ I realized that nothing is permanent,’’ he said. In 2018-2019, Nilanjan and his wife decided to separate (the divorce came through in 2020). They remain good friends. In 2019, he shifted back to Bengaluru and acquired a new partner but the relationship broke up within a year.
Around the same time, he also resigned from Cognizant. It happened gradually, like something progressed towards. Prior to leaving the company, COVID-19 had struck humanity. The pandemic reauthored office operations and work styles worldwide. Just when office as surrogate home became fashionable, the virus dispatched everyone back home and made an office of it. For those not part of any herd, it must have been a time of engaging options around how to design one’s life. Nilanjan decided to travel and work remotely. He worked as a volunteer at a farm in Mysore. The farm house was beautiful and life there was calm and peaceful. The volunteering gave him time to think and make up his mind on what to do – among them, find the resolve to resign his job. The urge to quit had been building up over the preceding months. Volunteering helped him see things in perspective and find the courage to actually put in his papers. Now, educated, experienced and between jobs, he volunteered full time at the farm. He also taught children at the local village.
The owner of the farm was a dropout from the corporate world, who wished to start a school with a difference. Thanks to COVID, the situation was so bad that such plans had to be put on hold. Nilanjan had to move. He did so; to Guhagar on Maharashtra’s Konkan coast and another farm, where he volunteered. Amidst the new stint at volunteering, he also operated as a guide for tourists arrived to indulge in adventure sports. But a disagreement between the business partners concerned, saw the enterprise he worked at, shut down. Courtesy social media, he found another opportunity to volunteer in Himachal Pradesh. The location was near Banjar. According to Nilanjan, he was supposed to run a café in partnership with the owner of the facility; the larger enterprise was to be a travel company with focus on outings in the Tirthan Valley. Around July 2022, he packed his bags and left Guhagar for Himachal Pradesh. Set to follow him, was a parcel.
From Nilanjan’s rides in Ladakh / camping in a meadow the day before crossing Wari La (photo: Nilanjan Guha Majumder)
Six years earlier, in 2016, Nilanjan had taken to cycling in a manner more committed than the commuting of his childhood. With a LA Sovereign MTB for steed, he had joined a cycling club in Kolkata. The Sovereign soon gave way to a Montra MTB. As his interest picked up and he met serious cyclists, he acquired a Java Velos 2 road bike. He took the Java with him, when he shifted to Bengaluru, a city known for its regular bicycle races and activities around cycling. During one of his rides in the city, he met Anand (Andy) and joined the latter’s cycling group. He also started going for trail runs at Avalahalli. After much use, the Java was sold to a person in Chennai. Nilanjan contacted Venkatesh Shivarama (Venky) of WheelSports in Bengaluru to buy a Polygon Bend R2, a gravel bike (it is capable of both tarmac and offroad and can be used for bikepacking trips). The new bicycle was delivered to Nilanjan in Pune. He rode it all the way to Guhagar. And when he shifted to Himachal Pradesh, the Polygon followed; it was parceled to him by Sunil Kumar Sahu, who Nilanjan trusts with transporting his bicycle. On the map, Nilanjan was now parked in Himachal Pradesh, south of Ladakh, a region loved by cyclists, climbers, hikers, runners – indeed anyone who likes freedom and exploration.
In some ways, the whole thing wasn’t accidental. Ladakh had been on Nilanjan’s mind from two to three years before his shift to Tirthan Valley. He had this vague idea of a plan – cycle from Himachal to Ladakh to Kashmir, Gujarat and South India before linking back to Kolkata. “ I had no idea what to expect. I am not a goal-oriented guy. I am a curious person, someone who keeps learning and possibly therefore, develops skills,’’ he said. Meanwhile, life in Tirthan wasn’t playing out as he would have wished it to. It seemed time to move again and explore. His former wife, who had stayed a good friend, pitched in to help. On July 28, 2022, Nilanjan set off for Ladakh on his Polygon. He proceeded to Manali and onward through the new Atal Tunnel to Sisu. There he met two friends from Kolkata and cycled with them to Sirchu. From thereon, he cycled alone. He rode via Tso Kar, Puga and Hanle to Leh, reaching there around August 20. After a brief halt, he cycled via Wari La to Nubra and returned to Leh via Khardung La. “ By now, I was in love with Ladakh,’’ he said.
The quest now was to figure out a means to hang on. Nilanjan likes photography. He approached a studio in Leh to see if the pictures he had taken, would sell. During the ensuing interaction with Rigzin and his uncle, Lobsang Visudha, Nilanjan came to know of the possibility of teaching computer applications to school children. He volunteered at Mahabodhi Residential School at Choglamsar in Leh. He taught computer studies for two and a half months. Over time, that volunteer work evolved into a proper job. From March 2023, he has been teaching there as a regular employee. Nilanjan is now a school teacher in Leh. According to him, his salary is considerably lower than what the IT industry used to pay him. But he has peace. In comparison, it was difficult to find peace in a corporate environment. During his days of volunteering at the school, he made friends with the local people. They helped him find an affordable place to stay in Leh. “ This phase has given me a strong sense of purpose. I like guiding students,’’ he said adding that he now has a feeling of having found what he was looking for.
From Nilanjan’s rides in Ladakh / on the approach to Tso Kar (photo: Nilanjan Guha Majumder)
When I met him in September 2023, Nilanjan led an active lifestyle mixing regular workouts, running and cycling with his newfound role of school teacher. On weekends, he went for long bicycle rides (we met at the dhaba after he had finished a trip up and down, Khardung La). The Polygon has held up well, he said. He made one modification to the bicycle – he replaced the rear chainrings, originally of a 11-32 configuration, with a 11-34. It helped him get a better gear ratio for climbs. Else, the bike is pretty much unaltered. Being a gravel bike designed to do bikepacking trips as well, its gearing doesn’t have the wide range of the classic tourer’s. But Nilanjan says, he hasn’t had reason to complain despite life in Ladakh. On long trips, he rides with loaded panier bags. So far, the bicycle has tackled all the uphill, downhill and flat terrain thrown at it.
A couple of days after this chat, a friend and I had Ladakhi food at the kitchen Nilanjan recommended. It was good. But above all, finding Ladakhi food amidst the predictable trends of the market, was a pleasure.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai)
Corina (Cocky) Van Dam; at the Vinfast Ironman 70.3 World Championship 2023, in Lahti, Finland (photo: courtesy Cocky)
This is an article by invitation. Corina Van Dam, or Cocky as she is popularly known in Mumbai, is a football coach, a long distance runner and a triathlete. She has participated in a number of races and triathlons across India. She has also taken part in endurance swimming events. She was recently at the Vinfast Ironman 70.3 World Championship 2023 at Lahti in Finland. Here, she writes about her experience at the event.
As age category winner in Ironman 70.3 Goa in 2022, I was eligible to register for the Vinfast Ironman 70.3 World Championship 2023 in Lahti, Finland. I dreamt of participating in a world championship when I was a young girl but never thought that this dream would come true at the age of 58…!
My development from athlete to triathlete has been an organic one. I have always loved sports and through the years (and the accumulation of age) I had increasingly started loving the volume of work-outs rather than the intensity. The longer a practice or race, the more interesting I found it to be. However, in order to not finish last in the world championship (which was my goal!), I had to increase the intensity of my workouts and speed / pace in the different elements. To cut a long story short…, though I had an excellent cycling coach in Abishek Avhad, I had not been able to cut a substantial chunk of my race time when it mattered. But the success that I celebrate is that I finished as nr. 141 out of 161 in my age category (mission accomplished!). And although I feel a bit ashamed that `my fans’ celebrate me as if I am the world champion, I am proud that I have been able to finish in a world championship surrounded by excellent athletes while enjoying the event to the fullest.
The challenges that I had to overcome prior to the race, were ‘swimming in a wetsuit’ and the thought of swimming in ‘cold water.’ With my Ironman (IM) travel mate Ritesh Thakkar, I took advantage of the public open water swimming spaces in Helsinki, where residents of the city dip in the water for their morning swim. I was so relieved when the water appeared to be ‘only’ 19.5 degrees Celsius cold. The Ironman practice swim in Lahti gave me the confidence that I would manage this leg. It seemed easy: no loops, no mass start, buoys with numbers and a finish line that could be seen from a distance. However, I was seriously intimidated by all those athletic bodies in shiny black wetsuits. The three women from Singapore said to me what I thought of every other athlete present: “ We hope you’re not in our age category…!’’ I received another shock during the bike check-in, the day before the race. While I checked the simplest Scott road-bike in, the poor thing was surrounded in Transition 1 (T1) by equipment from a different family: TT bicycles, carbon frames with disk wheels, aerodynamic helmets….
Corina (Cocky) Van Dam; from the Vinfast Ironman 70.3 World Championship 2023 (photo: courtesy Cocky)
As we were commuting from Helsinki to Lahti by train, we tried to do as many of the activities on the day of our registration, such as the welcome dinner and the Parade of Nations, so that we could meet other participants. I represented the Netherlands and I joined the group of Dutch people lining up behind the red-white-blue flag. As during an Olympic Games opening, we walked through Lahti Stadium which is situated at the bottom of three spectacular ski jumping hills (with a swimming pool at the landing) and waved at everyone who wanted to wave at us. The commute also gave us a chance to talk to ordinary Finnish travellers, IM participants and their families from different countries. During one of the trips – a special morning train from Helsinki on event day (like the Tata Mumbai Marathon train but only with triathletes) – we sat with the family of Steven McKenna, one of the professional triathletes. We could not get enough of listening to stories about his preparations and attitude towards the sport.
The world championship was held over two days. The first day was for us, women. From my first step in Helsinki Central Station to the last in the evening, I was surrounded by vibrant female concentration, power and energy. Countless were the moments that I felt emotional.
Not the least, when the professionals were being introduced to the audience and lined up for the race. After the Finnish national anthem, we could hear a pin drop in anticipation of the race start. And there they went… the pros, our role models, kicking off the long-anticipated event.
I was thrilled to participate with 2000 other participants in a women’s only race. As female triathletes in India, we are always surrounded by male participants. Often, there are only a few women present and I have been in races where I was the only one registered in my age category. I cannot describe how exciting it was to stand at the starting line with 160 women of my own age: wrinkles, grey hair peeking out from under our green swimming caps and singing and dancing to the music in our tight wetsuits that showed our trained and toned bodies in all their glory. Of course, I panicked when the swim started, as I always do. This time my contact lens moved when I jumped into the water. I immediately realised that if I lost it, I would not have any replacement or glasses for the rest of the race since the start / finish (the ‘Finnish finish line’) / Transition 1 and Transition 2 were all in different places. Shubham Vanmali, one of India’s great ultra swimmers and a recipient of the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure (sport) Award once told me that cold water amplifies fear. I did not allow this to happen. I managed to control myself and started enjoying the swim though my timing was not as it could have been.
Corina (Cocky) Van Dam; from the Vinfast Ironman 70.3 World Championship 2023 (photo: courtesy Cocky)
The cycling route was one loop through a rolling landscape. We crossed forests, meadows, and a few villages. The roads were closed and we just had to pedal without fear for upcoming traffic or potholes. Of course, there are always too many hills and there is too much head wind. After 30 kilometres of cruising, the road made a sharp bend and an awful hill showed its ugly face. At the sudden start of the climb, I approached another athlete and joked: “ I did not see this coming.” It happened to be Maitreyi Bokil and we both laughed. I managed to overtake a few triathletes but have especially learnt to recognize the sound of TT bikes closing in on me from behind. After the race, I kidded that I had overtaken 10 cyclists and had been overtaken by 100. Since there were many (younger) age categories that started behind us (the 55–59-year-olds), it did not matter. But of course, it always hurts.
With the run, in sight, I was relieved that I had completed the riskier activities (being caught by fear / cold during swimming – one female triathlete died during the swim – or a mechanical issue while cycling) which can end one’s race prematurely. The half marathon was fun. As on the cycling route, the residents of Lahti were sitting in front of their houses with their families, cheering us on. They sat in their foldable chairs, ringing cowbells or banging pots and pans with spoons. The run was two laps and it was painful to see athletes keeping right and head towards the finish while we had to start our second loop. When I used a hill to consume one of my LEAP gels, I heard my name and Ketaki Sathe flew past me. Wow! My running time was the same as during my last triathlon event and my overall timing was a carbon copy of Ironman 70.3 Goa in 2022.
It is a good practice during Ironman races that every athlete is as welcomed as the winner among the professionals is. With 15,000 volunteers, all 6000 participants received the support that we needed. After the race, no idlis or upma but pizza, hotdogs, ice cream, muffins, chips and Coke….! Race day was party time.
Corina (Cocky) Van Dam; from the Vinfast Ironman 70.3 World Championship 2023 (photo: courtesy Cocky)
The next day, I had a chance to watch the 4000 men racing. I thought I would have a quiet day but as it happened, I had to run up and down Lahti to see the professionals start their swim, run to T1 to see them finish and start cycling, run back to see Ritesh start his swim 2.15 hours after the professionals started (take pictures for his family at home), run to the road to see the professionals heading to T2, run back to watch Ritesh finish his swim and transition in T1 (another picture), and in a hurry run to the finish to watch the pros completing their case… I walked 23 kilometres as recovery, the day after my race. But it was great to watch without pre-race day tension, cheer the Indian participants on and experience the race as spectator from the first to the last finisher.
I had an unforgettable time as amateur / tourist, but it became clear that I am in no position to compete with the best in my age category at a world championship. Participating has been a humbling experience. It has shown me how privileged I am that I had learnt swimming, cycling and running from a young age so that I could participate in a race like this. I could also afford to pay for the registration, flight and accommodation which is not the case for many of the age group winners in India and others in the Global South. For now, the Ironman World Championship remains an event for the privileged ones. And this privileged one needs to step up if she wants to be more than just a tourist at another Ironman 70.3 World Championship.
(The author, Corina [Cocky] Van Dam works with an NGO. She lives in Mumbai.)
Abhilash Tomy and Kirsten Neuschafer (this photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of 2022 GGR and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)
An overview, till early May 2023, of the 2022 edition of a fantastic race
Like some who watch the David Lean classic ` Lawrence of Arabia’ finding the desert the film’s real hero, the actual hero of GGR is the sea – its known tendencies and its unpredictability. None, not even the world’s best sailors, are spared.
As of late April, of the 16 sailors who commenced the 2022 Golden Globe Race (GGR), only three were left in the main race category. Two stood pushed to the Chichester Class. The rest had retired. This included two major accidents – a case of a boat sinking in the Indian Ocean in November 2022 and another of a boat rolled and dismasted in the southern Atlantic Ocean in April 2023. Nothing captured the sea’s effect on a race and those tracking it, as well as this comment posted on GGR’s Facebook page after the world was informed of Kirsten Neuschafer being seven nautical miles from finish and without wind to push her on, “ All of us on the YouTube live chat are pointing hairdryers, leaf blowers out windows and waving towels and beach blankets towards coastal France!’’ By afternoon, April 28, the situation must have felt similar for Abhilash Tomy and his fans too. He was expected at Les Sables-d’Olonne that day but thanks to prevailing weather conditions, the ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) stood revised to late morning April 29.
Over four and a half years after a storm in the Indian Ocean left him badly injured, Abhilash Tomy finished second in the 2022 Golden Globe Race (GGR). According to the event’s live tracker and Facebook page, he crossed the finish line at Les Sables-d’Olonne in France after completing the race’s mandated solo, non-stop circumnavigation of the planet, at 04:46 hours Universal Time Coordinated (UTC) on Saturday, April 29, 2023. The race was won by Kirsten Neuschafer of South Africa. Sailing in the Minnehaha, she reached Les Sables-d’Olonne at 19:44 UTC on April 27, 2023. The 2022 GGR had got underway on September 4, 2022.
Simon Curwen (this photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of 2022 GGR and is being used gere for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)
The first among the 2022 GGR participants to reach Les Sables-d’Olonne after a full circumnavigation done, was Simon Curwen of United Kingdom. He had led the race by a considerable margin for much of the voyage before the need to repair his boat forced him to deviate to coastal Chile, relegating him to the Chichester Class (sailing with one stopover) of the race. With that he stopped being one of the contenders for a podium finish in the main GGR, which requires solo, non-stop sailing. However, Simon caught up with the competitors who had gone past him during that halt in Chile, overtook them and finished ahead of all in the early afternoon (10:38 UTC) of April 27, 2023.
By evening the same day, the winner of the 2022 GGR, Kirsten Neuschafer of South Africa, reached Les Sables-d’Olonne becoming in the process, the first woman to win a round-the-world race by the three great capes across the solo / crewed and solo / non-stop categories. She is also the first South African sailor to win such an event. Her voyage as part of the 2022 GGR was remarkable not just for the quality of sailing she showed but also the rescue of fellow GGR participant, Tapio Lehtinen. The rescue happened in November 2022. Lehtinen’s boat sank suddenly in the Indian Ocean forcing him to transfer to a lifeboat. Neuschafer was awarded the Rod Stephen Seamanship Trophy by the Cruising Club of America for the rescue. The intervention, also fetched her time-credit in the race, as compensation.
Two things set the GGR apart from other races involving circumnavigation of the planet. Given it has the flavour of a retro-sailing event, some aspects of technology and access to technology permitted for the race have been pegged back to what prevailed a few decades ago. Second, a non-stop voyage around the planet takes a massive toll on both sailor and boat. This is where Abhilash’s story becomes special. In 2013 he had become the first Indian to complete a solo, non-stop circumnavigation in a sailboat (INSV Mhadei) as part of the Indian Navy’s Sagar Parikrama project, conceived and overseen by the late Vice Admiral Manohar Awati. A few years later, in 2018, he had participated in that year’s GGR only to end up with serious injury to self and his boat (Thuriya) dismasted, following a severe storm in the southern Indian Ocean. But he fought his way out from that reversal of fortune; he underwent surgery and rehabilitation and eventually got back to flying and sailing, the activities that defined him as a naval aviator and one of the all-time greats of Indian sailing. He then signed up for the 2022 edition of the GGR and returned to the race with the Bayanat; the boat was named after his main sponsor for the voyage, a company from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) specializing in AI-powered geospatial intelligence.
This video posted by the 2022 GGR is from the segment spanning Cape Town to Hobart. Starting with the days around Tapio Lehtinen’s rescue, it provides a feel of what being at sea is. Also, Abhilash was under considerable stress in the portion of the race leading to the location of his 2018 accident in the southern Indian Ocean; a conversation with race organizers near Cape Town revealed this. By the time he got to the check point at Hobart, he was past that rendezvous, relieved and in a cheerful mood.
Now retired from the Indian Navy, Abhilash’s passage in the 2022 GGR wasn’t easy. Although he kept himself in the pack of race leaders, the position probably revealed little of what he was actually enduring. He knew the sea, the challenges pertaining to weather and maintaining the boat. But in 2022, there was a new ingredient in the mix – his mind, still living the memories of the September 2018 accident. It was clear to those tracking the 2022 race and reviewing videos posted from the periodic rendezvous with sailors at check points that Abhilash was battling anxiety in the portion of the GGR leading to the southern Indian Ocean, where in 2018, he had been battered by a storm. This was vindicated by his admission (in communications with the race organizers) of a peace finally found after he got past the site of the 2018 accident. Thereafter, it was a different Abhilash. His worries from that point on, seemed mostly about addressing the needs of his boat which kept developing a litany of complaints. But he responded creatively and found solutions for the problems without resorting to a stopover for repairs. He improvised with what he had aboard. This approach kept him alive in the main, competitive segment of the race featuring solo, non-stop circumnavigation. Amidst this struggle, he coped with his old injuries acting up as a consequence of long hours of work, steering and maintaining the boat. What reached Les Sables-d’Olonnes on April 29, should therefore be a package of Abhilash and Bayanat that captures single handed sailing over an extended period of time. Saturday (April 29, 2023) was the 236th day since commencement of the race.
Abhilash and Bayanat (this photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of 2022 GGR and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)
For a race of this dimension, the boat matters. During the 2018 GGR, Abhilash’s boat had been the Thuriya, a replica of the Suhaili, in which Sir Robin Knox-Johnston had completed the world’s first solo, non-stop circumnavigation and won the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race of 1968-1969. The Suhaili was bult in Mumbai; Thuriya in Goa. To compete in the 2022 GGR, Abhilash bought a Rustler 36 type of yacht in France; it was then renamed Bayanat. The boat had been used in the 2018 GGR by Philippe Peche of France. As per information on Wikipedia, of the 16 sailors who commenced the 2022 GGR, four – including Abhilash – had boats of the Rustler 36 type. Kirsten Neuschafer’s Minnehaha is a Cape George Cutter (CG36) while Simon Curwen’s Clara and Michael Guggenberger’s Nuri are both Biscay 36. At the time of writing, Guggenberger (he is from Austria) was in third place with roughly 488 nautical miles left to finish. South Africa’s Jeremy Bagshaw sailing in the Olleanna (OE32 type of yacht) was second in Chichester Class and 1621 nautical miles away from Les Sables-d’Olonne.
In a video posted on the GGR Facebook page, Abhilash could be seen saying soon after his arrival at Les Sables-d’Olonne in France that this is the first time an Asian is securing a podium finish in a round-the world race of any format. “ It’s a big moment for me,’’ he said. Responding to a message from Admiral R. Hari Kumar, chief of the Indian Navy, congratulating him on his achievement, Abhilash recalled the support he had received from the senior officer when in 2018 he put in his resignation because he wished to attempt the GGR and was unsure he would be able to do that through the navy. The admiral was at that time, head of HR in the navy. “ He understood the importance of GGR and he pushed the boundaries of a lot of rules to make sure that I was here,’’ Abhilash said, adding that when he had the accident in the 2018 GGR (his boat, Thuriya, was dismasted and he suffered serious injury in a storm in the southern Indian Ocean), the admiral had been in the operations room directing the rescue.
“ I am happy to have completed the circle. The stigma of losing a boat…I didn’t want to, you know, once is an accident, twice is a habit! So, I really wanted to get Bayanat back and I can tell you, Bayanat got me back,’’ Abhilash said. Asked about the impact of his podium finish in India, Abhilash pointed out how small the number of yachts in all of India was. From that backdrop, if he could think of a circumnavigation race and complete it, it meant the youngsters of India can do a lot. Comparing the two solo, non-stop circumnavigations he has done so far, Abhilash said that the INSV Mhadei was a big boat, one that kept you safe as long as you made sure that nothing happened to it. It didn’t demand a lot. “ But a small boat with wind pilot and no GPS is a hundred times more difficult. But at the same time, I want to say that if that circumnavigation had not happened, I would not have dreamt of coming for GGR. So, they are important in their own places but a GGR is a hundred times tougher than what I did in 2013.’’
The Puffin adrift at sea following the rescue of Ian Herbert Jones (this photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of 2022 GGR and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)
The second major mishap of the 2022 GGR happened on day 218 of the race (around April 10, 2023) in the Atlantic Ocean. According to the first report on the incident on the GGR website, Ian Herbert Jones of the United Kingdom and his boat Puffin, found themselves in `extreme weather and confused seas.’’ Ian was unable to launch his drogue (a conical / funnel shaped-device towed behind a boat that is used to reduce speed and improve stability) to keep the boat stern to the waves and avoid being rolled. In the extreme conditions, he had been washed out of the cockpit twice. With communication, including via satellite phone, rendered erratic by the prevailing conditions, Ian had activated his Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB). Things appear to have escalated fast. A few hours later, the Puffin’s distress alert button was activated and with it the rescue coordination centre in Argentina was informed of the emergency at sea. Soon thereafter, a text message from the Puffin said that the boat had been rolled and dismasted, there was two feet of water within and its skipper, having injured his back was finding it “ hard to move.’’ Ian got the water ingress under control but by then, he had also gashed his head. On day 219 of the race, Ian was rescued by the Taiwanese fishing vessel Zi Da Wang.
Storms and freaky weather conditions aren’t the only things that trigger retirement in endurance races. In solo, non-stop sailing, the boat he / she is in, is every sailor’s floating house. It is what shields sailor from the elements. Its maintenance is a constant job. Equipment aboard may malfunction or break down. The hull may gather barnacles and slow down the boat’s progress in water. Monitoring, cleaning and repairing – it keeps going on. Depending on what is available and what isn’t, one may require to be creative on the repairs. The paradigm of a race, enhances the importance of these aspects. In solo sailing, all this has to be done by oneself. Limits reached on any of these fronts or quite simply the mind declining to sustain its appetite for such life, can lead to people pulling out.
A summary of the race would be incomplete without a picture of the finish. A circumnavigation is a hell of a lot of distance covered, long enough for people to be separated by vast margins at sea. Yet by the time, Abhilash and Kirsten Neuschafer entered the Atlantic for the second time in their long voyage (this time on the way back to Les Sables-d’Olonne), it was clear that a tight finish was on the cards. Around the equator, the lead separating the two had reduced considerably. At times, they seemed almost parallel to each other on the race’s live tracker. Eventually, Kirsten finished first, Abhilash placed second. For most observers, given a whole planet circumnavigated, both represent endurance sailing at its best.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. This wrap-up is the extended version of two articles by the author published in Telegraph and Rediff.com)
Kirsten Neuschafer (This image was downloaded from the Facebook page of the sailor and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)
Abhilash Tomy in second place but old injuries act up
The 2022 Golden Globe Race (GGR) took a twist recently with British sailor, Simon Curwen, who was leading, opting to enter the Chichester Class following damage to his boat’s windvane in the Pacific Ocean. With this, South Africa’s Kirsten Neuschafer has become the new race leader although she is still separated by a significant distance from Simon.
Indian sailor, Abhilash Tomy, currently in second place (after Simon Curwen shifted to Chichester Class) is not far from Kirsten. An update from January 27, 2023, available on the GGR website and which disclosed the setback suffered by Simon, mentioned that Kirsten and Abhilash are apart by just 50 miles. The race is still far from over; the participants have to cross Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America and sail up the Atlantic Ocean to Les Sables-d’Olonne in France to complete the solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the planet they set out to do.
The current edition of GGR had commenced in early September, 2022, from Les Sables-d’Olonne. It is a repeat of the original GGR of 1968-1969, in which Sir Robin Knox Johnston of the UK became the first person to do a solo, nonstop circumnavigation in a sail boat. Onboard technology levels in the 2022 GGR are pegged to near similar levels as prevailed during the first race decades ago. If the nonstop nature of the race is breached for some reason, then the participant can continue in the Chichester Class, named so after Sir Francis Chichester, who sailed solo around the world (from west to east) with one stop at Sydney, in 1966-1967. On January 30, the GGR website while confirming Kirsten Neuschafer as the new race leader of 2022 GGR, informed that Simon Curwen would be heading to Chile for repairs. The news of his opting for Chichester Class has been posted on Simon’s Facebook page as well.
Since race commencement in September, there have been drop-outs due to damage to boats and one incident of a boat sinking. There were fifteen men and one woman as participants at the start of the race. As of January 31, 2023, three men and one woman remained in the main competition with three others continuing in Chichester Class. The lone case of a boat sinking – it occurred in the Indian Ocean – had seen the current race leader Kirsten Neuschafer and Abhilash Tomy move to the aid of the stricken sailor, Tapio Lehtinen. Kirsten effected the rescue, a feat that won her the Rod Stephen Seamanship Trophy from the Cruising Club of America.
Abhilash Tomy (This photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of GGR and is being used here for representation purpose. No copyright infringement intended)
Abhilash Tomy was a participant in the 2018 edition of GGR. That time, his boat was rolled over and dismasted in a storm in the southern Indian Ocean. Besides damage to the boat, the mishap left Abhilash with serious injuries to his back. He was eventually rescued in an effort that featured maritime assets from India, France and Australia. Later Abhilash had to undergo surgery and extensive rehabilitation following which, he worked his way back through walking, to sailing and flying planes. Since retired from the Indian Navy, he returned to the GGR as a participant in the 2022 edition. The initial phase of the 2022 race was tough for him as he had to deal with the mental trauma of sailing the seas leading to the region of his 2018 accident and get past the area. Unfortunately, while in the Indian Ocean, he suffered a fall on his back and his old injuries have started acting up under the rigors of solo, nonstop sailing.
When one is alone at sea, one has to do everything aboard the boat oneself and this entails long hours of staying awake and working. The GGR website said in its update of January 30 that Abhilash – he had a recent instance of steering by hand for 12 hours during a gale – has been enduring “ back pain and numb limbs.’’ He spoke to doctors who gave him exercises to regain control of his leg; the medical team has also advised him on pain treatment. He will be resting for some days before returning to his work. However, given he won’t be racing during this time and would be sailing under reduced sail with a view to keep the boat comfortable, it may temporarily make his progress slower and the route longer than that of Kirsten.
“ Abhilash is safe and does not require any assistance and is in complete control. He knows he must rest now, so the pains do not return again. GGR is closely monitoring the situation,’’ the event website said. Abhilash is the first Indian to sail solo and nonstop around the planet in a sail boat. He achieved it in 2012-2013 as part of the Indian Navy’s Sagar Parikrama project.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)
Finnish sailor, Tapio Lehtinen (This photo was downloaded from the Facebook page of Tapio Lehtinen Sailing and is being used here for representation purpose, No copyright infringement intended)
The 2022 Golden Globe Race (GGR) saw a rescue operation at sea get underway over November 18-19.
Finnish sailor Tapio Lehtinen was the participant rescued; the location was in the southern Indian Ocean. Tapio’s vessel – the Asteria – flooded suddenly and sank. He had to shift to his life raft.
According to the first report of November 18 (available on GGR’s website), Tapio communicated distress at 0645 UTC that morning following which, the race organizers started coordinating with French and South African authorities. “ At 0852 UTC, Tapio also activated his life raft’s PLB indicating that he may have abandoned ship. The life raft also has a VHF radio and GPS packed inside. MRCC Cape Town contacted nearby commercial vessels to divert to his position, with the closest ship 250 miles away,’’ the report said. PLB stands for Personal Locator Beacon.
The GGR entrants nearest to Tapio were India’s Abhilash Tomy (sailing in the Bayanat) and South Africa’s Kirsten Neuschafer (sailing in the Minnehaha). They were 170 miles and 105 miles south-southwest of Tapio, respectively. Both sailors were informed of Tapio’s location. Abhilash, who was the first to receive the message diverted his course accordingly. Tapio’s communication indicated that he was “ able” and had the emergency grab bag containing food, water, and critical equipment with him. The report said, Tapio informed GGR officials that his yacht had flooded from the stern with water up to deck level in five minutes. He was in his survival suit and had boarded the life raft but with no glasses was struggling to write or read text messages.
Same day, with Kirsten successfully contacted and she being the participant closest to Tapio’s position, Abhilash was released from the rescue effort. However, he continued to sail close by and asked to be updated on the progress of the rescue operation. Meanwhile, South African authorities established communication with Captain Naveen Kumar Mehrotra of the Hong Kong-flagged bulk carrier MV Darya Gayatri, to divert and render help. The ship was 250 nautical miles northwest of Tapio’s location.
As per the second report of November 19, Kirsten reached Tapio’s location at 0510 UTC that morning and picked up the Finnish sailor from his life raft. “ Tapio had an early visual on Kirsten’s yacht, but she could not see the life raft in the swell. Kirsten would hear him on the VHF but Tapio could not hear her voice. The GGR Crisis Management Team homed her onto Tapio’s position until they were close enough to see and hear each other to plan for recovery. Kirsten called the GGR Management team at 0805 UTC to confirm that she had retrieved Tapio from the life raft onto Minnehaha with a retrieving line,’’ the report said.
According to it, Tapio has since been shifted to the bulk carrier MV Darya Gayatri. As explained in the report of November 19: “ Kirsten called the GGR Management team at 0805 UTC to confirm that she had retrieved Tapio from the life raft onto Minnehaha with a retrieving line. After sharing a good glass of rum, they then proceeded to put Tapio back in the raft, pulled it towards the carrier, which he then successfully boarded via a rescue ladder.’’
GGR involves a circumnavigation of the planet. The 2022 edition of the race started from France on September 4.
Back in 2018, during the last edition of GGR, Tapio had been among the finishers. This time however, his race has ended in the southern Indian Ocean. As of November 20, GGR’s website said on Tapio’s page (every skipper has a write-up introducing him / her), of the incident causing his exit from the 2022 race, “ Asteria sank in 5 minutes with a strong unidentified water intake from astern. ‘’ A Facebook post by Tapio’s team (its English translation has been made available on the GGR Facebook page) said that the Finnish sailor woke up at around 8.30 AM on Friday (November 18) to a loud bang. At that point, the water was knee-deep in the boat’s saloon. More water flooded the engine compartment at the rear. The situation was dire. “ The most critical moment was when the pull knot of the life raft came loose. Fortunately, the weather was almost calm. I took a long leap into the water, grabbed the board and jumped in,’’ the post quoted Tapio as saying. He watched his yacht slowly sink, “ At the last moment, I stood up shakily in the life raft and put my hand in the cap as a last salute to my friend,’’ he said.
In the 2018 GGR, Abhilash Tomy had suffered accident and injury in the southern Indian Ocean following which, he was rescued in an operation involving Indian, Australian, and French authorities.
As of November 20, 2022, GGR’s live tracker showed Simon Curwen of the UK in the lead. He was followed by Abhilash in second place and Kirsten in third.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)
A dormitory. A pair of trekking boots. A chant. An unfinished business.Together, a story.
It was in January 2022 that Everest Base Camp (EBC) entered the life of Varghese Varghese M.
A lawyer by training and based in Kochi, he had no previous background in outdoor activity. But the idea of trekking to EBC, which his friend Shelly Joseph broached, attracted. To get himself physically fit for the trek, Varghese launched into a regimen of diet and exercises. Two months later, he weighed 75 kilos (lighter by 10) and was capable of jogging five kilometres in half an hour. “ On April 14, I set out for EBC,’’ Varghese said.
Part of a group of ten clients headed to EBC, upon reaching Nepal, he stayed in Kathmandu for two days. While the rest of the group proceeded from Kathmandu by road to Saleri, Varghese flew to Lukla and hiked to Ghat. The team joined him in Ghat. From Ghat, Varghese and his group, trekked to Namche Bazaar, where they halted for two days to acclimatize and rest. The whole trek was to be via Gokyo Lake and Cho La Pass. Following rest at Namche Bazaar and a visit to the Everest View Hotel in that while, the group headed to Dole. Here, something Varghese was well aware may happen but hadn’t quite anticipated, commenced.
He developed a headache. He also began feeling quite cold. By the time, the team reached Machermo, Varghese was very ill. His oxygen saturation level was down to 54 per cent. Ignored or left unattended, sickness brought on by high altitude can become a serious condition. The best medicine is to shed elevation. Pasang Gyalsin Sherpa, who hailed from Lukla and was the team’s guide, said that Varghese shouldn’t trek any higher. He arranged for a helicopter evacuation and Varghese was flown back to Lukla while the rest of the team continued to Gokyo Lake and EBC (5364 metres / 17,598 feet). “ Within 15-20 minutes of being in Lukla, my oxygen saturation recovered to 86 per cent,’’ Varghese said. The next day, in the same chopper that brought him to Lukla, Varghese managed a flight to see Gokyo Lake, Lobuche and Mount Everest. Having seen the world’s highest peak and the region he should have been in, from a helicopter, Varghese returned to Kathmandu and all the way south to Kochi. It was a sad end to his first outing in the Himalaya.
The Metro Pod in Ernakulam. (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
That was the story, narrated with a distinct tinge of disappointment, which I heard at The Metro Pod, the backpackers’ dormitory (near Maharaja’s College metro station) at KPCC Junction in Ernakulam, the central business district of Kochi. It was May 2022. A regular customer at the dormitory by then, I was intrigued by the sight of Varghese walking around in trekking boots. It smacked of a mind still elsewhere. We got talking and the story of the aborted trek to EBC tumbled out. Varghese owns The Metro Pod. Besides the boots, there were other signs on the premises of his first trek in the Himalaya. Atop the table at the dormitory’s reception, was a newly acquired medium sized Bluetooth speaker. It played the chant Om Mani Padme Hum in a loop. I haven’t visited Nepal. I distinctly remember settling into the sofa in the reception, listening to the chant and recalling happy days spent in Ladakh. Tucked away in India’s abject north, Ladakh’s ambiance had that chant for call sign. Cold mountain days and a glass of warm ginger-lemon-honey tea. Nothing like it! That was before Ladakh became a union territory, before COVID and before inflation and steep travel cost. For freelance journalist on shoestring budget, it made the chant cause for nostalgia. The whole experience – Varghese’s story, the chant and even some Buddhist prayer flags hung in the reception – lent The Metro Pod a backpacker-touch, something I hadn’t sensed in my earlier visits. Its clientele, as I had experienced it till then, was mostly working people (those in Kochi on business or simply passing through) and youngsters in town for exams.
Varghese and Pasang (Photo: courtesy Varghese)
The building that houses The Metro Pod was constructed in 1952 by Mani Varghese, Varghese’s grandfather. From 1957 to 2014-15, one of its tenants was the Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC). They used it as the party’s state headquarters and later, the office of the district committee. Mani Varghese died in 1985. The ownership of the building shifted to Varghese’s father. Following his demise in 2011, Varghese assumed charge. A few years later, when the Congress party vacated the premises (the party’s state headquarters is now in Thiruvananthapuram), Varghese decided that apart from the shops on the ground floor, he wouldn’t give the main building on lease to anyone, anymore. Instead, he would do something himself. He also knew he didn’t wish to change the building’s external appearance or its interiors, radically. Any new enterprise would have to be within the existing old-world charm. That’s how Varghese dispensed with the idea of a full-fledged hotel and opted for an air-conditioned dormitory.
In retrospect, his timing was probably spot on. By the first and second decade of the 21st century, there was a new generation on the move in India that didn’t measure itself by social status and opulent displays of wealth, like the generations before it did. Clean, functional and affordable premises were good enough for this new lot to stay in. Kerala’s urban sprawl, its consumerism and the projects underway in the state (not to mention – its large diaspora) fetched visitors to the state who sought functional accommodation. Further, the recessed economic conditions triggered by COVID-19 and subsequent global developments, have only enhanced the relevance of no-nonsense, affordable accommodation everywhere. In Ernakulam, Varghese wasn’t exactly a pioneer in the air-conditioned dormitory segment. That tag should go to Peter’s Inn, located at the MG Road metro station (the two dormitories share a cordial relationship).
From the ABC trek(Photo: courtesy Varghese)
It took Varghese a year to renovate the innards of the old Thamarappilly Madaparambil Buildings into an air-conditioned dormitory. In February 2019, The Metro Pod opened its doors to the public. It has 132 beds. The first floor is a mixed dormitory; the second floor is exclusively for women. Four rooms for those wishing to stay in their own rooms, were planned for addition later. “ The new rooms should be ready in November,’’ Varghese said. It was October 2022. Weeks earlier, during a stay at The Metro Pod, I had asked Mani, the manager, where Varghese was. “ Sir is not here. He is back in the Himalaya,’’ Mani said. He whipped out his phone and enthusiastically showed me some photos he had received. Clearly, Varghese hadn’t been idle since our conversation in May.
His first attempt to reach EBC, which ended in retreat due to the potential onset of acute mountain sickness (AMS) had left Varghese very disappointed. Following that trip, he was supposed to visit Scandinavia but abandoned the plan for want of motivation. “ I was mentally low,’’ Varghese said. At the same time, EBC nagged like unfinished business. After reflecting on the experience, he decided to visit Nepal again in September 2022. Having witnessed what happened at Machermo in April, Shelly advised that Varghese get some medical tests done before launching into his second attempt to reach EBC. Dr Parveen Sultana, who had once been a guest at The Metro Pod, helped with the process. Another visitor to The Metro Pod who chipped in around this time was Srijana Dhar; she worked with the online travel company, Make My Trip. Familiar with high altitude trekking, she gave Varghese useful advice.
Taking a cue from conversations he had with Pasang, who had been his guide in April, Varghese decided that a prospective second attempt at EBC wouldn’t be with any group. Instead, it would be him, perhaps a friend, a porter-guide and enough time and flexibility in schedule to proceed at a comfortable pace. “ With a group you don’t have that freedom. If you are slow, you may end up inconveniencing others. It’s better to be on your own,’’ Varghese explained. His trekking partner for the second shot at EBC, was M. P. Ramnath. Currently a leading civil lawyer at the High Court in Kochi, years ago, Ramnath had won two national awards for best child actor (the films were Oppol and My Dear Kuttichattan). Back then, he was known as Master Arvind. The duo’s departure from Kochi was preponed to August-end to suit Ramnath’s convenience. They reached Kathmandu on August 30. Pasang was slated to anchor the Nepal leg.
Varghese and Ramnath at Annapurna Base Camp (Photo: courtesy Varghese)
The next day, the weather turned bad. It was projected to stay so for several days. It wasn’t possible to proceed by road or fly to Lukla. So, Varghese and Ramnath changed their plan. At Pasang’s suggestion (he had come to Kathmandu to arrange a porter-guide), they traded the trip to EBC for a shot at the Annapurna Base Camp (ABC / 13,550 feet) trek. The weather was better that side and the trek was open. Following a taxi ride to Pokhra, the duo and their guide started the trek from Tikhe Dunga. Thanks to the rainy season, there was plenty of leeches. But overall, ABC was an enjoyable trek. High points included beholding the Annapurna range and the beautiful Machhapuchhare peak from Tadapani, meeting a Nepali man who spoke Malayalam (the language spoken in Kerala) in Chhomrong and trekking to Machhapuchhare Base Camp (12,135 feet) from Dovan. There was also this instance of a youngster from Chennai struck by AMS. The youngster was heading to ABC and Varghese and Ramnath met him at Deurali on their way back from ABC. Given his previous rendezvous with high altitude sickness, Varghese had carried two oxygen bottles with him, as precaution. He loaned one of the bottles to the youngster to help him recover. The youngster was later evacuated by chopper, Varghese said.
From the EBC trek(Photo: courtesy Varghese)
The ABC trek went off well for Varghese. He didn’t feel any major discomfort. Best of all, at its end, he was feeling perfectly alright. For Ramnath, it was time to return to Kochi. Varghese hung on in Nepal to attempt EBC again. Before leaving Kochi, he had told his wife, Ramya (she and their children take care of The Metro Pod when Varghese is away) that he would do the EBC trek and come back. An opportunity to fly to Lukla on September 12 was lost after the flight got cancelled. On September 13, he teamed up with an Australian couple – Chris and Raechel – and flew to Lukla in a hired helicopter. After breakfast at the Yak Hotel owned by Pasang, Varghese hired Milan as porter-guide for the trek to EBC. The two started hiking that day itself to Monjo.
From the EBC trek (Photo: courtesy Varghese)
On this second attempt, the EBC trek played out better for Varghese. As on his first attempt, he was taking Diamox (acetazolamide – medication used to treat altitude sickness) but the major difference was – the ABC trek done earlier had helped him acclimatize and become comfortable with high altitude. He was attempting EBC after an ample number of days already spent at altitude. However, there were still moments of concern. On September 17, following their early arrival at Thukla, Milan recommended crossing the Thukla Pass and getting to Lobuche. That night at Lobuche, Varghese couldn’t sleep well. Next day at Gorakshep, the tiredness from lack of proper sleep was compounded by a mild headache. He had soup and managed to reach EBC and get back to Gorakshep but found himself thoroughly exhausted. The memory of his April-tussle with altitude sickness still fresh in his mind and desiring to ensure that things don’t get out of hand, the following day, he skipped the ritual visit to Kala Patthar (18,517 feet). Instead, he headed back to Lobuche at lower altitude and the next morning took a chopper all the way to Lukla and then another chopper to Kathmandu. He spent two days in the city and then boarded the flight to Delhi and onward to Kochi.
When I met him in October, Varghese wasn’t wearing his trekking boots. He seemed relaxed and wholly – body and soul – at The Metro Pod. “ The mountains are addictive,’’ Varghese said, looking back at his unexpected dive into trekking and his three treks so far in 2022. Outside The Metro Pod, a motorcycle stood parked. It had brought an IT professional out on a break from work in Andhra Pradesh, all the way to Kochi. I had heard him speak of his journey in the dormitory room. In March 2020, Varghese had purchased a Royal Enfield Himalayan. That day in October when I took leave of him, Varghese wasn’t yet clear on what adventure to embark on next. But there was something around motorcycle and mountains, brewing. In mid-November, Varghese texted that his friend Shelly had bought a Royal Enfield Meteor for the duo’s planned trip to Khardung La in May 2023.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai. All the photos used herein, except the one of The Metro Pod, were provided by Varghese.)
Reaching the small pass on the road from Pargaon to Junnar (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
A bicycle trip we had planned a couple of years ago, eventually got underway in March, 2022. Hoping against logic, we imagined temperate weather; the lingering grace of winter’s extended exit. Nature had other plans.
Heat waves are not often heard of in Mumbai.
There is always the relief gained through location on the sea coast. But then, these are times of unusual weather. On March 16, 2022, newspapers reported that the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued a heat wave warning for Mumbai.
In its report, the Times of India explained, “ heat wave warnings are issued when the temperature of any coastal station reaches 37 degrees and the departure from normal is between 4.5 to 6.4 degrees. When both these conditions are met for a costal station like the city and when it persists for two days at more than one station, then a heat wave is declared for that region. If departures exceed 6.5 degrees, then severe heat wave conditions are issued by the weather bureau.’’ The report then quoted the IMD: Due to the advection of warm and dry winds from North West India, heat wave to severe heat wave conditions are very likely over parts of Konkan-Goa, including Mumbai, over the next three days. Due to the prevailing clear skies and low humidity values, the temperatures are expected to rise and similar conditions are likely to prevail for next two to three days over the region.
Savouring a patch of shade (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
“ Aha,’’ I thought with the satisfaction of having found the answer. My mind was dwelling on the afternoon of March 5. Early that morning, Prashant Venugopal and I had set out on a small, multi-day cycling trip from Navi Mumbai. We knew the timing was bad; ideally it should have been in December, January or February when the weather is relatively pleasant. But for much of January-February 2022, I wasn’t in Mumbai and given his work, Prashant has to schedule the required number of days, which takes time. Eventually, the trip was slotted to commence on March 5. The idea was older still. It took shape in 2019, not long after the two of us cycled from Mumbai to Goa (for more on that trip, please click on this link: https://shyamgopan.com/2019/12/29/on-a-bicycle-mumbai-goa/). By now periodically studying the map for interesting routes, we had noticed this giant circle possible around the Bhimashankar massif. With Malshej Ghat added, one could do it like a circle linking the coastal plains with the higher Deccan Plateau. Then a few things happened.
First, in the first quarter of 2020, India slipped into COVID-19 and lockdown. The following year too was spent in and out of COVID. Our trip went into hibernation. Second, we heard that portions of the route had become part of a BRM. Brevets are a different world. As the casual touring sort, we would never cycle as fast or as consistently as those participating in brevets do. But news of the BRM reminded us to try the route, in our own way. Third, over 2020-2021, Prashant’s niece came to study at a university near Bhimashankar. We thought of our fifty plus-selves dropping by one day on cycles to say hello but the very same musings provoked the question: why don’t we do the full route? We took it up seriously in February 2022, dates were decided towards the end of the month and after a quick check of the chain, drive train and disc brakes of my bicycle by Inderjeet of Evolution Cycles, we left home at around 5.30 AM on March 5. We had this hope that although it was unmistakably summer, the weather would be tolerable.
On the Mhasa-Vaishakhare road; late afternoon, day 1, Gorakhgad and Machindra to the far left
Our goal was to proceed from Nerul to Panvel and onward to Chowk, Karjat, Mhasa, Vaishakhare, Malshej Ghat, Junnar, Narayangaon, Chakan, Lonavala, Khopoli and eventually back to Nerul via Panvel. We made no arrangements for stay in advance and given the Mhasa-Vaishakhare stretch could see us bivouacking, we provided for some extra layers in the panniers besides regular stuff like snacks, first aid kit and bike repair / maintenance equipment. We thought of taking a tarp or a tent ground sheet along but finally dispensed with that; neither of us wanted to work overtime on fashioning a perfect ride. Take it as it comes.
Gorakhgad (background, centre) and Machindra pinnacle (to the left), as seen from the ashram in Dehri (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
By noon of the first day, on the Karjat-Murbad road, it was amply clear that we had underestimated the heat. Among the great achievements of civilization has been diminishing tree cover and this road seemed an excellent example of that. The land to the side of the road and the smaller roads meandering off inland had sprinklings of shade. But the main road itself was starved of tree cover good enough for you to stand under and feel cooled. Those big trees of yore – they are deeply missed. The result was a slow and steady progression of cyclist into dehydration. It wasn’t so much the lack of water, which we had in sufficient quantity. In my case, it was the loss of water and salts and the glare all around caused by exposed road and limited shade. To make matters worse, I love tea and soft drinks. Both, recommended as unsuited (perhaps the right description is: deceptively satisfying) for hot days, I downed in handsome quantities. It was a bad choice. I felt full and hollow at once and lacking energy. After a particularly bare stretch of blazing hot road, roughly an hour before Mhasa, I unhesitatingly rode into the fragile, thatched shelter of a tiny shop selling lemonade. It was sweet relief and there I remained for quite some time, waiting for Prashant and recalling a similar moment of God sent-relief on a hike to Prabalgad several years ago.
Our mountaineering club having acquired new tents, Abhijit Burman (Bong), Franco Linhares and I had decided to camp overnight on the hill’s apex, so that we could test the gear and also take in the unhindered sight of city lights in the distance. All that was good, except somewhere in the walk-in with tent, stove, fuel and provisions to cook food, Bong remembered that he had forgotten to take a matchbox. None of us smoked and that meant, there were no matches on Franco and I, as well. Suddenly we realized the value of a matchbox; the small thing separated us from a nice dinner and sleeping on an empty stomach. And we liked to eat. The evening was quickly fading to night, when we hurriedly retraced our steps to the nearby village. We worried that we may have to knock on people’s doors, be a nuisance. And what if they didn’t have matchboxes to spare? Luckily, ahead of the village, a lone old man appeared smoking a beedi. “ Maamaaa…,’’ Bong shouted in relief and happiness. He brought himself to a halt before the old man, bowed low and offered a heartfelt namaste. Never before in the history of the matchbox was a non-smoker so happy to see a person with smoke escaping his lips. The old man looked on amused. Bong narrated the blunder we had committed. The old man listened. He saved us, he let us have his matchbox. At the small roadside shack, I had three lemonades one after the other. Prashant had his share. Never before in the history of lemonade were two cyclists this happy to see a lemonade vendor. Thirst quenched and salts restored, we thanked the vendor and picked our way to Mhasa.
Sunrise on the Mhasa-Vaishakhare road (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
At Mhasa’s Guruprasad restaurant, we evaluated our options. Enquiries along the way had shown that rest houses were limited on the Mhasa-Vaishakhare road. “ Go to Murbad’’ – that was everyone’s suggestion. On the other hand, we had thought of days one and two of the trip as its main attraction and within that, the Mhasa-Vaishakhare road was important. Cycling to Murbad and then returning to Mhasa next morning to be on that road, didn’t appeal. The waiter who served us lunch at the hotel indicated that his manager may know more and so Prashant took up the task of speaking to the manager to find out about places of stay. He recommended an ashram in Dehri village and connected us to the caretaker there. It was a restricted property and securing permission for stay was difficult. But eventually, Prashant got a yes. The journey from Mhasa to Dehri was more or less a repeat of the conditions experienced on the Karjat-Murbad road. It was hot, dry and not generous in shade. By evening we were in Dehri and the ashram, located right at the base of Gorakhgad; Machindra pinnacle to the side. Under the greener circumstances of monsoon or winter this would be a pretty place. Unfortunately, we were visitors in March. In summer, vegetation in the Sahyadri dries up and the hills acquire a dusty, light brown shade interspersed with the black of ancient volcanic rock.
Gorakhgad holds a special place in my life. It was one of the first Sahyadri forts I hiked to, back in 1997-1998. After my first hike in Sikkim, I had looked out for company to go hiking around Mumbai and my first friend in this regard was a young, very tall Sikh gentleman. We made an odd pair; as tall as Satinder was, I was short. Gorakhgad was the second or third fort I visited with him. Those days, Dehri had been just a bus stop with a couple of shops. Having arrived in the late evening bus from Kalyan (or was it Murbad?), we slept in the veranda of one of the shops and hiked up Gorakhgad early next morning. However, it was in the years that followed, spent hiking and climbing with Girivihar (Mumbai’s oldest mountaineering club) that I realized the full scale and wealth of the Mhasa-Vaishakhare road. From Gorakhgad to Jeevdhan, Naneghat and Bhairavgad a massive wall of hills signified the abrupt drop of the Deccan plateau to the coastal plains. The last time I was here was to hike up Dhakoba and onward to Durga Killa (you can read about it here: https://shyamgopan.com/2013/08/05/the-short-cut/). Simply put, Mhasa-Vaishakhare is a special road; one of the less celebrated gems although of late (especially following the early waves of COVID-19), there have been reports of many visitors going in, naturally triggering concerns alongside. Our stay at the ashram was comfortable. The caretaker’s family made us a tasty dinner. Our gratitude to them. As we took leave of the family to return to our room, a car load of trekkers who had taken a wrong turn, arrived on the premises asking if the path to Gorakhgad ran through the property.
From the road to Malshej Ghat (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
Early next morning, we pushed off for Vaishakhare and Malshej Ghat. The road was very good and distances marked directly on the tarmac indicated that it may have played host to road races. We cruised along, first in darkness and then, savoring a fantastic sunrise. A few kilometers before Vaishakhare, a man we met suggested that we take a short cut. We did so and ended up off-roading for a while. The path connected us to the road leading to Malshej Ghat. At the hotel we stopped for morning tea, a bus passenger traveling from Ahmednagar to Kalyan and halted there for breakfast, took much interest in our cycles and the small trip we were doing. He gave us an overview of the road to Junnar beyond Malshej. Tea had, we pushed off. Our next stop was another hour or more later – a cart and a van parked by the road to Malshej; the former offering tea and vada-paav, the latter functioning as a store selling packaged snacks. Both were managed by a local villager and his son. We had tea and vada-paav and enjoyable conversation with the father-son duo. Then, up the ghat road, we continued.
The small eatery called Hotel Malshej; Balu and his wife, who served us excellent food (Photo: courtesy Balu)
The mountain wall from day one now curved towards Malshej Ghat. The dyke-like Bhairavgad was an impressive sight to behold. Meanwhile we could see ranges coming into view on the opposite side of the road as well. Occasionally a motorcycle rider or the occupants of a passing car would give us a thumbs up for encouragement as we sweated it up Malshej Ghat (on the Internet, the average elevation of Malshej Ghat is given as 700 metres, around 2300 feet). We took periodic breaks, particularly at view-points with parking space created by the side of the road. Having learnt the importance of self-care from the previous day, we were also quite liberal with halts for hydration, especially lemonade. Around noon, we reached the entry to the final stretch; there was a lemonade stall, a fort-like structure and a patch of road with a fleet of cranes and many workers engaged in (what seemed like) strengthening the rock wall of the hill through which the road had been cut. Besides that, the workers removed lose rocks. We paused here for lemonade and some down time spent watching people and traffic. Early afternoon, we reached the side road leading to the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation’s (MTDC) resort at Malshej Ghat. But given Dehri had made us fans of the local cooking, instead of heading to the resort straight away, we dove into Hotel Malshej, a dhaba (small eatery) right at that corner. It was operated by Balu and his wife. They didn’t let us down. It was another encounter with tasty food; fresh, simple and beautifully made. We told Balu that we will be back for dinner.
Post lunch, we proceeded to the MTDC resort but ended up quite disappointed with their tariff, which despite it being off season, was high. The tariff showed no sign of being flexible. And they didn’t appear to require questioning the inflexibility because there were people driving in on their cars and SUVs, willing to spend that much for a room. What are two cyclists then? – I guess. We asked ourselves if the basic paradigm of a bicycle trip is to spend high for creature comforts or focus resources on the cycling. The answer was definitely the latter. So, we consulted Balu and he fixed us up at Hotel Nisarg a little distance away. It was a rather bleak lodge but liveable and with an evening stroll to a nearby meadow possible and dinner set up at Balu’s eatery, the hours went by quickly. Interestingly, the lodge’s biggest customer appeared to be the firm doing the work on the rock wall at Malshej Ghat. The officers of the company stayed there. There was a small temple near the lodge. Harishchandragad could be seen in the distance. There was however one emergent problem – the flow of traffic on the road was now steady and the number of vehicles, more. On top of it, the road here was in a bad state. It didn’t augur well for next day’s start.
On the road to Junnar (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
Hikers, climbers, runners, cyclists – they typically like an early morning start. The reason is simple. Unlike people traveling in the climate controlled comfort of automobiles, these activities involve physical strain. You therefore try to get at least some portion of the day’s work done before the heat sets in. It had been the same with us. We always aimed to commence cycling by 6 AM or earlier. Usually, it is a nice experience. That terrible irritant of Indian roads – traffic, is less and in places away from cities, you have a world at peace for bonus. Early next morning however, the cycling was a challenge. The road was gravely, the tarmac dipped sharply at the road’s edges and there were potholes. But the real nuisance was the traffic and the ocean of lights one saw in front. Probably because this is a hill section, trucks, cars, pick-ups, SUVs and vans plying on the road tend to have multiple lights. Their logic would be – the more the number of lights, the more the visibility. Oncoming vehicles therefore hark of a film shooting scene. There’s so much light; all one needs is a movie star dancing on the road. What they forget is, lighting technology has changed over the years. The average car or SUV of today has headlights significantly more powerful than what they used to be years ago. Adding more lights is overkill. For cyclist on the road, oncoming traffic awash in a battery of such lights is blinding. For an hour at least, I struggled to see properly. Dawn’s sunshine brought relief. Slowly the road condition too improved. We soon got past Pargaon and on to the hill road leading to Junnar. This road was a bit steep in parts but it was in excellent condition. There was very little traffic at that hour and hence, the road was quite enjoyable. It was peaceful.
We saw a well-dressed young woman, seemingly on her way to college, walking barefoot with her slippers in her hand. It was an odd sight. Prashant asked why she was walking so. She replied that her slippers were fancy ones unsuited for walking on the hill road. Maybe closer to her destination, she would slip them back on. The road climbed up to a lovely, small pass with a temple by its side. We parked our bicycles at the pass to hydrate and take in the view. It was an impressive landscape; a chain of hills and the lake created by the Pimpalgaon Joga Dam. As we stood there, we saw a cyclist on a light road bike, come up from the Junnar side. It was Santosh, jeweller and cyclist from Othur, out on his regular training ride. It was a study in contrast – he on an utterly light road bike free of load and us (an MTB and a hybrid) sporting panniers and hauling load. We exchanged notes and a brief conversation later, Santosh rode off elegantly as road bikers typically do; he essayed a smooth turn at the corner and disappeared down the road in the direction of Pargaon. We crossed the pass towards Junnar and were treated to a long, smooth descent. It was fun; that stint going downhill felt like a magic carpet-ride.
Looking towards Malshej from the small pass on the road connecting Pargaon and Junnar (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
After breakfast at Junnar, we attended to a major problem, on since day two of the ride. My shoes, veteran of several rides, were enduring a divorce; the upper had come off the soles completely. The first one separated so before the trip and I had it repaired in Navi Mumbai. The second one followed suit at Malshej. We located a cobbler just outside the Junnar bus depot. He stitched the whole thing up. Bless you sir. We set off for Narayangaon. In retrospect, all the attractions of this trip ended at Junnar. From Junnar onward, the route we had chosen was on a crowded main road or highway and therefore very reminiscent of India’s daily rat race-existence. We could sense in the environment, the distant presence of Pune, Maharashtra’s second biggest city and among India’s major industrial hubs. As traffic from all over merges and proceeds to such hubs, the local flavour recedes and an industrial blandness takes over. The return to urban life was viscerally felt in the lunch of day three – the thali we ordered at a dhaba along the highway had nothing authentic or regional. It tasted of everywhere. Several hours of cycling on characterless roads later, we reached Chakan.
Meeting Santosh; the small pass in the backdrop (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
By now the return to civilization was full blown. Its most visible ambassador was traffic moving nonchalantly towards you on the wrong side of the road. It seemed an institutionalized, normal practice. And it was dangerous, making for deadly roads. We turned into the road leading to Talegaon from Chakan and some ways off, decided to halt at the fairly upmarket Matrix Inn. While we discussed the tariff, we told the manager of the hotel that we were cyclists out on a multi-day trip and spending high wasn’t exactly what we wished for. He heard us out and offered a good deal; he also let us take our cycles to the floor we stayed on. It was an excellent stay. Next morning, the hotel even prepared an earlier than usual complimentary breakfast for us. There was sandwich, boiled egg, fruit and tea. Our thanks to the manager and his staff.
The early morning ride through Chakan was a gaze into the dim underbelly of GDP. The factories here contribute to the GDP that is bandied about as data for discussion in the financial circles of Mumbai and the government circles of Delhi. However, there is something bleak about how GDP is made; about Chakan’s early morning heavy traffic, the sight of buses transporting workers to various factories, people waiting at bus stops, the queues before factory gates and people walking along the road, mile upon mile, proceeding on foot to their places of work. And the sun isn’t up, yet. There was an Orwellian tinge to the picture; a sense of self succumbed to industrial order and redemption through money. It isn’t an uplifting sight and you cannot blame anyone for the lack of buoyancy in the frame. It is just us, our numbers and our predicament of life traded for means of survival. Spoken of as data and statistics and minus the human angle, GDP is sexy.
Day 3, lunchtime; our cycles at a dhaba between Narayangaon and Chakan (Photo: Shyam G Menon)
We wound our way to Talegaon, tucked into the traffic flow headed to Mumbai on the old Mumbai-Pune highway, watched paragliding over a cup of tea at Kamshet, breezed through Lonavala, descended to the coastal plains via Bhor Ghat and sat down for a ritual snack at Khopoli. The whole passage was as industrial as the morning mood of Chakan. A few hours later, Mumbai hit us in full force at Panvel. By afternoon on the fourth day (March 8), we were back in Nerul. In terms of daily mileage (approximate and measured on Google), Prashant estimates it was 95 kilometres covered on day one, 55 on day two, 90 on day three and close to 130 on day four. The cycles – a Trek 4500D MTB and a GT Traffic hybrid – held up well. The only instance of gear malfunctioning was a headlight (one of two used on the given cycle) that failed on day two. We tried repairing it in our lodge room at Malshej but to no success.
The IMD’s warning, the Mumbai municipal corporation’s (BMC) advisory on heat wave and the related news reports not only put those hours on the Karjat-Murbad road and the Mhasa-Vaishakhare road in perspective, it also helped explain another aspect of the heat, which we had felt. Although the cycling beyond Malshej had been less enjoyable due to traffic and regular highways, the heat hadn’t been as punishing as it was in the phase before Malshej Ghat and the phase following Bhor Ghat on the return. That was unusual for summer – a comparatively tolerable Deccan and an unsettlingly warm coastal plain.
(The author, Shyam G Menon, is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai.)
Outrigger 