This is not a story.
This is real.
I've pondered over it many many times but still it is somewhat unbelievable.
L.I.F.E.
Little Indian Family of Explorers.
Anand and Punita, a lovely jolly couple in their mid thirties. Their two children, 10 years old Yash and 7 years old Dhriti, more popular as Jia in the family.
I did not know them personally until recent time when I met them. But following them started quite sometime back when I first heard about them on radio. It was accidental and it was a matter of 'right place at right time'. That day I reached office parking lot and about to turn off the car. The radio jockey was announcing that there is a couple in their studio and they are embarking into an epic journey of their dream and announced their social media contact information. Until this whole conversation was over, I could not switch off the radio for few minutes. The first thing after logging in that morning, it was the search for the web-link which I just heard in radio. It opened and it blew me off. It still does so whenever I think about it. I really can not figure out, no wait, better I say that I'm quite sure that it is an utmost daring attempt in a lifetime. The question is how did this happen. To figure that out to a certain extent, I had to patiently wait for couple of months with an adrenaline rush throughout this period.
In our office, CnT Architects ( www.cnt.co.in ), we have something called 'Katte'. It is a platform in the office which is organised once in a month and we invite people of different walks of life to share their experiences with us. When I coined this idea to Anand, he readily accepted it. And I was all set to meet them. Infact the whole office was very excited about this. We fixed 30th october 2015 as the date. I was travelling overseas around that time but made sure that no matter what, I be present for the gathering as Anand also had already altered one of his family commitment. All fell in place and finally we met.
Anand, Yash and Dhriti arived in the evening. Punita could not make it on that day. The whole office came out to greet them and we did a photoshoot with everybody encircling them. After settling down a bit, the sharing started. It gave a special feel to it when Anand said that this is their first public presentation after they accomplished their dream journey.
Anand used to work with Dreamworks Animation studio in Bangalore until he started establishing his own setup to seek something else in life where Punita also joined him. Yash and Dhriti go to school. Since their ancestral home is in Rajasthan, the whole family went for a road trip from Bangalore to Rajasthan and back which covered around 5000 kilometers in 2014. On the way they discussed that if this could be the warm up trip then they should do a much larger trip in sometime. When Anand was planning to leave his job, he thought of a longer road trip and candidly proposed that to the entire family over the dinner table and as a first impression, everybody agreed to it. The search began from there. Slowly Anand started realising the magnitude of the task of taking up something real big. Big, because, the trip was going to be from Bangalore to Paris by road.
Bangalore to Paris. By road. Driving all the way in a car.
Exciting. Very very thrilling. Indeed by all means. But it is a mammoth task to accomplish. Anand started working on it silently. He made several iterations to the route. Had to study the social and political status of the countries which come on the way. Carefully Anand picked up the route which seemed to be comparatively safer. Just to avoid the shortest but unsafe route through middle eastern countries, Anand had to re-route it with a longer travel path which shot up the overall distance by couple of thousand of kilometers. Finally the route was finalised and it appeared to be around 18000 kilometers cutting across 11 countries.
So after finalising the course of journey, Anand had to look out for permits. Now here they would need visas for every individual country separately along with the car-net to drive on foreign land. The relentless persuation started to follow up with different embassies. After a couple of months' hard work, thousands of e-mail exchange, numerous phone calls, Anand could put all the permits in place. At this juncture he explained the whole idea of the journey to Punita, Yash and Dhriti. Quite naturally it was a zapping moment for all the family members. Slowly it sank in. Everybody started understanding the magnitude of the journey and the associated factors with it. Next thing was to select a suitable time. The estimated time was coming around 101 days. So getting school holidays was a challenge. Anand and Punita talked to the school authority and managed to convince them to get additional days off after the regular school holiday. So another big hurddle was crossed. And that time Anand also will be out of his regular routine job to cope with the time. Route map, permits and time frame were sorted out.
Next question was which car to take for this journey. For various obvious reasons keeping in mind the unknown terrains and road conditions, SUV would be the best bet. Anand tried to pull in various automobile maker to provide with a SUV for the cause. But when he saw not so optimistic response, he decided to take his trusted one and half year old Fiat Linea Turbo-jet machine itself for the trip. Punita being a good driver, she also agreed to drive as much as possible. Now started the preparation for the journey. What to wear, what to eat, where to stay, what medicine to carry, what equipment to use for navigation etc. At this point they came up with the idea of naming themselves as 'L.I.F.E.' - Little Indian Family of Explorers. So LIFE started fixing few items to their car. First was the THULE carrier on top of the car roof which would carry their clothes sufficient enough to reduce laundry work. It would carry a good amount of warm cloths as well. As the whole family is vegetarian, they would carry the car boot full of home made food which would give good support in case of need. Then they fixed a GPS Navigation equipment from Garmin in the car. This device would require coordinates to feed in to get the route map. Lots of car body stickers were designed and made for the bonnet, fenders, door walls as well as boot cover.
Once the car was decked up then they designed their T-shirts in different colours which would be a suitable attire for the entire journey.
Time just flew by when they finished all these preparations and the date of start of the journey arrived. LIFE were featured in Bangalore FM radio stations and national daily newspapers in many occasions. They were posting all the happenings in their website to keep everyone aware. I was completely glued to it every single day. A sense of excitement built up.
Then the 'Day' came on 8th April 2015 and they were flagged off from Marriot Hotel Bangalore with lots of good wishes.
The first stop was at Hyderabad where LIFE took rest for two days with lots of fun at Marriot Hyderabad.
The next stop was at Nagpur and from there they headed towards Varanasi via Katni.
The path continued to Nepal.
There they camped.
And then the first blow came as a devastating Nepal earthquake from 25 th to 29th April 2015. At that time they were just around 100 kilometres away from the quake epicentre. The white dot in the photo was there location.
Anand had posted from this location - "After being held up for 5 days at he Zhangmu checkpoint, the Army-incharge advised us immediate evacuation from the place - 'on foot', as the roads were completely unmotorable. We were told to pack complete essentials and hike to the nearest town, from where we would further be driven to a safe spot by the army. Our vehicle keys were handed to the Army Officer and we left on foot. Its been there now since we left on the 29th. We are working with the army and other officials including help from Indian Embassy to find a way to get the vehicle back. We trust these guys with everything as they have been more than helpful, more like guardians to us, esp. the Chinese Army. Our further journey much depends in news in this regards in coming days."
And LIFE could move ahead into China safely after a halt at Kathmandu.
The beautiful terrain of this region made it a pleasurable drive.
This is the spot where Anand went nuts and spent good amount of time just in the middle of nowhere.
The gigantic sand dunes of Dunhuang made the kids to go up all the way to the top.
Yash playing with the local folks by the highway enroute to Kyrgizstan from Kashgar, which is the last big town west of China.
LIFE experienced the magical change in landscape within a short span when they crossed border of China and entered into Kyrgizstan. It got lot better and scenic. The place where they camped, got changed overnight.
What a lovely monument to visit ! Gur-E-Amir in Samarqand which has a mausoleum of a reputed ruler Amir Timur. And it is said that this monument has inspired many other great monuments including Humayun's tomb and Taj Mahal.
Uzbekystan has a lot of natural surprises throughout the contry.
Turkmenistan became a highlight of their trip as it changes it's appearance time to time. A live crater which is there for last 45 years - 'Darwaze or Door to Hell' is a sight to behold.
Ashgabad city centre is somewhat amazing with its mirror polished roads.
Iran touched LIFE with their warm hospitality.
When they reached Turkey, they asked rhetorically - 'how a country can be so simple, clean & gorgeously beautiful at the same time'.
Bursa was kind of a homecoming for the car as the Linea is designed and built at Bursa Fiat Manufacturing Plant and LIFE got lucky to have a tour around it.
LIFE entered into Greece at the peak of it's economic turmoil but eventually they survived and enjoyed the entire country.
They did lot of driving in Greece to cover many places.
And Anand & Punita celebrated their 15th anniversary also in Greece - couldn't have been any more romantic otherwise.
LIFE crossed the Mediterranean safely and landed up in Italy.
As Yash was insistent on meeting Neimer, they had to divert to Spain and visit Barcelona.
And then finally the euphoric moment came into being.
Nobody else than LIFE can explain this moment better :
"On 22.07.2015, approximately 21.30 hours, vessel number KA53 MB 0702 with four members namely Dhriti, Yash, Punita and Anand Baid on-board their Fiat Linea TJET, reached the foothills of the majestic Eiffel Tower in Paris.
After setting sail from Bangalore By-Road on April 8th, their journey lasted for 111 days, travelling 22780 kms in 11 countries and over 50 cities.
Reaching the destination has always been less euphoric than the journey itself. And for the experiences the jouney entailed, we feel fortunate and blessed !
Although when we reached Paris and had no further destination to drive to, is when we realized that the journey has come to an end. We screamed, we sang - we talked - wow people fly down to Paris for a holiday and we drove down. This feels cool and weird. Haha !"
After the satisfaction of completing this 'dream drive' the entire LIFE team came back home with a warm welcome by the family members and friends.
Ofcourse the fifth member of the LIFE team came back home after a month of shipping.
A journey of this magnitude and courage, simply can not be captured in a small blog post.
It needs to be felt through the stories they have earned, the memories they share and the passion they emit.
I was fortunate enough along with my colleagues at CnT Architects to get LIFE amidst us to learn about their incredible experience.
From deepest part of my heart, I wish LIFE many more happy and encouraging journeys like this in the time to come. This epic journey was priceless and to know more about it, will wait eagerly to see their documentation which will be out in due course of time as Anand ascertained.
