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Basque on a bike [contd.]

"I am Basque", he said.

"Spanish, you mean?", I asked.

"No,Basque", he replied, firmly.

So, Patxi has some processes going on within!

When he first came to India, it was with friends in a caravan and they travelled to Calcutta , Varanasi, and Delhi.

"I don't know why, but I wanted to come again. Alone."

He couldn't have organised it better. He arrived in Jaipur with a take-apart bicycle. I got out of the airport, assembled my bike and have been pedaling ever since!

I bike about 80 kM a day and try to get to a place with a hotel, but don't often make it. But that never became a problem. People always offer room or a meal or whatever help I need."

This was a pleasant change for him. He had travelled in Pakistan before. There were no incidents, but a constant sense of being a watched-stranger. There were piercing pairs of unsmiling - though not hostile - eyes forever tracking him.

But the real menace that he had to handle, was the number of Pakistani soldiers hustling him, as they hawked 'fun-fire' on their AK47s, at $5 a go!

"In Rajasthan people are busy, hard working and yet have time for you. But leave you alone if that's what you want."

He travels through country roads. Far from where commerce and traffic rages. A serene India does exist.

Patxi [-pronounced Patchi] and hundreds like him are coursing through India right now and enjoying it.

But none can be quieter than Patxi.

Witness to a fall

...Nagaraj Sharma of Amarkantak

It was my last day at Amarkantak and I had not yet entered the temple. I had been on a trek into the jungle nearby and ,as a city dweller, taken in by the silence and vast desolate expanses, save for the few Bhil huts.

But surely I must visit the temple before I leave?

"Can you tell me a little more about the origins of Amarkantak?," I asked the temple priest when I had been around the small temple.

"Come with me and meet Mr.Nagaraj Sharma. He will tell you all you need to know."

We walked to a house across the road.

And , that's how I met this remarkable man. Now in his late seventies, he runs an ayurvedic clinic and is an admired senior citizen. He has also captured the imagination of some young men with his ideas on life and education. A school is run in Bijnor, UP that adheres to a curriculam he has developed. It's basically about how education can be cost-free with students learning and generating revenue simultaneouly.   [NEXT PAGE]