A motorbike journey for peace and positive change

By Nitesh Square,thenews.com.pk - The motorbike trip we are planning to undertake from Mumbai to Paris next month was sparked off by a discussion in the mountains of Sandakphu, West Bengal in September 2011. I had joined a group of friends doing a 110-mile Himalaya race there, and two of them, Priya Darshini and Ram Sethnu, mentioned that they were also planning to do the Hippie Trail Hitchhiking from France to Goa. I wasn’t interested in the hitchhiking part of it but the idea of an overland journey on that route sounded very appealing.

A week later, I was back in Mumbai and started my research on road routes between India and France. That’s when the idea of connecting peace with this motorbike emerged. Over the past six years, I have been working with a couple of groups engaged in spreading awareness regarding peace through the medium of films and peace festivals in different parts of India. It struck me that along our journey we could collect unpublished stories related to non-violence, peace, change and inspirational people. A hundred such short stories would end up in a photo book.

Parth Vasavada, a friend from Ahmedabad, India, asked to join me. How could I refuse?

Parth, the Founding Member-President of Yuva Unstoppable and Founder of Youth Recruitment Programme, represents the true inspirational face of the Indian youth. He is an avid cyclist, food lover and traveller. He loves watching movies, reading — books are his oxygen – and doing anonymous acts of kindness. (Twitter: @ParthVasavada).

It was Parth who suggested this name for our journey — ‘De Paix Yatra’. De Paix means Peace in French. The concept of De Paix Yatra is based on the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is one family). Soon we realized it was not going to be an easy task to travel in countries where we do not know anyone. We had lots of groundwork to do, to ensure that we were not going to hurt anyone’s sentiments while experiencing different cultures.

At one point, we decided to end our journey in England, and make this into a motorbike trip for peace from Mumbai to London. It would take about 65 days, and we would stop at more than 50 cities in eight nations, and cover around 13,000 kilometres on our motorbikes. We also decided to record our journey in video cameras and make a mini-series of short films, documentaries on peace and change. Read more…