Snails on Wheels… a meeting
“Just wanted to update you, we have now crossed the Indian border and have been asked to self quarantine for 14 days.”
“Quarantine”? I inquired without ado. Arguably, the most used English language word for the past two months has a capability to arouse a rain of emotions.
My conversations with a chat handle on my what’s app had increased multi fold in the past few days too. I had saved the name exactly how they liked to be called — “Snails on Wheels”! Apart from their story which smells wow in every breath it takes, this small but very significant group of three Kerela-born ‘snails’ had set themselves on a journey on December 15, 2019 they hoped, you and I will join. Clifin Francis, Dona Jacob and Haseeb Ahsan are the center pieces here — three very different people, who came together for an adventure and decided to make their journey worthy of a cause, worthy of a story. Started in Cochin, Kerela, India on December 15, 2019, their expedition, ‘Road to Tokyo’ was envisioned as a slow, detailed and long journey (about 10,000 kms to be completed over a period of 8 months and across 8 countries) that all three had promised themselves with. Their destination was two fold — to land up in Japan and cheer for the Indian Olympic team at the Tokyo event in July 2020 and, to make sure they gathered enough prayers along this journey that the cheering could fall back on.
Imagining three people, all with three bicycles, limited bag-packing luggage and unlimited zeal set on such a long journey, is a confusing thought. I had over burdened myself with the mystery in this story, in the very moment I was introduced to it. Riding through India- Bangladesh-India-Myanmar-Thailand-Laos-Vietnam-China-Japan may not be an impossible task. That is why people like them were taking it up. What was more intriguing for me in it was what this route was meant to mean. Clifin had been on journeys like this multiple times before. For years, he took off to travel for over and above 6 months in a year. Infact, he had conceived this idea with Haseeb during the football cup in Moscow last year, which also he had cycled to.
‘Why start from Kerela?’
‘Well, it naturally fell in our plans as we all, incidentally belong from there. Infact, we share the same almamater too. That’s how Clifin and I met Dona. She is an experienced rider too. She has been on multiple biking tours in Cuba and elsewhere.”
“So are you the only inexperienced one? Wasn’t gaining fitness for this ever an issue? I am sure it would have been one of your concerns while preparing for this.”
Haseeb said the answer to this was hidden in the way they had structured their journey, their name. Snails, I figured, were symbolic of two actions — movement and healing — just like the two slimes their body was made of : the motion slime that was meant to further their slow yet smooth movement from point A to point B, however challenging the surfaces be and, the protective slime that would insulate them from all the harm coming their way. Clifin, Dona and Haseeb did not see this as a competition, a race or a fitness test. For them, their journey meant movement with stability, experience with adjustment and lessons with a goal. They were covering not more than 100–150 kms spread over 5–7 hours a day and spending the rest exploring the place, finding local food, fixing their camps and taking adequate rest. For them, riding was the most essential part of the trip, but it was also what they had to do to keep their journey moving.
In my conversations with them until now, I’d realized that the same journey was as different for each of them as their respective personalities were. Dona, inspired by her mother, who she proudly said had raised her without questions, despite her non-conforming life choices was ‘the caretaker’. Just like her mother who supported her in all her decisions, including this very unconventional choice which demanded leaving a well paying job, being indefinite and susceptible to unsafe environments, Dona, as others called her, just knew how to provide the support, the push, that was needed to get things done.
“She is the perfect balance between nonsensical and no-nonsense”, recalls Haseeb. Dona believed in the fairy tale ‘Cinderella’ as much as she cared to meet more vulnerable girls and talk to them about the importance of education, physical strength and work. Dona was aware of her privileges and curses alike. She took pride in being dreamy about witches, and being capable of becoming one, if needed.
“She handles all the tough situations. Talking to people, through people, or carrying a straight face, comes naturally to her. Once, she called out a man in Orissa who’d abused her while we were riding. She made him stop the bike and apologise”.
I’ve often been accused of questioning a lot. Sometimes, I pretend to be dumb to stop myself. A friend in law school had once asked me if I thought the Indian legal system had gone too far in an attempt to empower and mobilize women. He was right, our response was overboard. Every question against the status quo is meant to be an illusion, a pass worthy anecdote. Did we need a Dona with shaved hair to look tougher? Or, was it just a hair cut she liked and used on herself? There are thinner lines of judgement than morality. Her journey, on the two wheels was meant to normalise these questions, to deepen the curve between acceptable and celebrated, even if that meant, asking questions without seeking answers.
“Tell me about someone extremely interesting you met with, along the way?”
The strangest thing about people who’ve travelled a lot is the fact that they’ve seen a lot to cherry pick a story or two. For someone whose experience changes every minute, putting down in words, peculiarity, is a tough job. Yet, an old man, around 55 years of age, the owner of Sunray Resort in Bhogarpuram, Andhra Pradesh, got himself etched in their minds like no other.
“This old man, who would’ve hardly studied beyond middle school set up a green house with several plants, all of which, he addressed scientifically. He had the newest forms of irrigation installed across other areas, he played music to his plants, which by the way, he curated, as he was also a certified DJ”.
Clifin, Dona and Haseeb didnot realise but they too were, this man for me, in my innumerable experiences. Their idea was simple, ordinary. The task at hand was extraordinaire.Would it be hyperbolic if I told you I could feel the warmth from the light that shone up in their eyes, every single time they spoke about what this journey meant to them…. as if our phones were carrying it, as if light suddenly traveled faster in medium, as if I was the cheerleader in their journey, more than what they wanted to be for the Indian team coming July. Clifin made faces, it appeared. For him, it was only about the food. Or, mostly about it- to find the best, the cheapest and the most locally savoring food. From his very first riding experience in Iran, till today, when he was making sure he made full use of his isolation time to eat well, Clifin’s idea of travel was very basic. He just wanted to get going, rest everything else came along. Yes, he wanted to learn to swim, to speak more languages, to face his fears, to talk to dogs, to get more people to ride, yet, what he wanted the most was not stop himself. His ideal life reminded me of a utopian travelogue, sometimes also of Julia Heywood’s book, the Barefoot Indian that I’d read in a day as an eight years old. It was my first experience of what exposure and inner journeys was capable of doing to someone. Clifin had taken up freelance teaching years ago, so he could spend the most time moving around.
“There were forces who find the way”, he said. Guess all what people had to do was make sure they showed up at the gate.
“But hey, am I always talking to you, Haseeb?”
Usually the most inevitable conclusions of a travel story, specially for people our day and age is enveloped in introspection, inner growth and philosophy. Talking, for example, besides being the easiest things for me to do, is also cathartic. Being able to convince myself, through others, how these journeys has helped me a little bit each time, was, and still remains my pet peeve. I would be judging myself if I accepted my philosophies were chosen, had the luxury of being curated and shared the burden of social dramatization. Talking is an art, engaging in conversations was the job of an artist. Haseeb felt the same. He told me how he’d found his job to be the talker, the entertainer, the social media enthusiast, in the group and in this journey that all three had set themselves on. Solo travels might be the new thing in town, but it takes just the right amount of courage and compromise to be in a team, and also contribute to it.
“I take care of the PR, of adding the spice!”
Today, Clifin, Dona and Haseeb are re thinking their future plans. They are sitting in a government facility in Agartala where they’ve been made to compulsorily quarantine because they had a travel history. With the Olympics been postponed for another year, their goal, has also unfortunately changed. Each of us today are figuring out ten hundred ways of spending our time. We suddenly have a lot of it. Yes, our plans have been affected, our work, killed. In it, are several others, like these snails. Who knows where they’ve built their burrows to hibernate?
A lot of answers are pending. All may not be worth knowing when all this is over. What’s left for you and I to really know is whether their journeys had to change, too?
