I WALKED 30 KILOMETERS

On the 8th of Oct, Sunday, out of nowhere, my best friend suggested a plan - “Let’s walk from Sopore to Srinagar”.

You don’t need to know where Sopore or Srinagar is.

All you need to know is that the distance between these two places is more than 30 kilometers.

Exactly a week later, last Sunday, we left at 8:10 in the morning and started walking. The weather was kind of cold, stomachs were empty, and phones were fully charged.

3 km later, we realized that it was not that difficult. Why would it be? It’s just a long long walk.

Let me tell you a few things about me. Actually, let me draw a comparison between me and my friend.

You get the point - I’m not into walking a lot.

But then again, it’s a challenge, and whatever the challenge is, sign me up.

So we were making progress.

At 10 km, we took a break and started walking again.

Doing almost 5 km an hour wasn’t bad after all.

Arguably, I’ll call myself athletic. I train at the gym every single day - so the challenge shouldn’t be that difficult. It’s just walking, right?

But 12 km in is when that initial pain crept up.

One of my legs felt it first. There was a slight tightness but then again, it’s all natural. After all, we had been walking for 2+ hours.

In the third hour, we were even stopped by a few security personnel who were really confused as to why were started doing something like this. A few people even offered us apples.

That’s a story for another day.

4th hour in and we took our second break.

Legs were cramping, back was tightening, and the spirit was burning more fiercely than when we began this.

Then the 5th hour was when we dragged each other.

This is the point when you consider giving up.

This is the point when you question why you are doing it in the first place.

This is the point when you think about the people who are more comfortable sitting at their homes rather than doing something like this.

6th hour in, we saw our final destination after 30 long kilometers.

And even though we saw it at a distance, we still took two more breaks before we reached there.

I think I have traveled between these two destinations more than 100 times in my car. Even more.

But whatever I saw, the people I met along the way, and the things we had conversations about, I don’t think we could ever do all those things in a car.

One of my students asked me once “I want to be interesting too but I don’t have enough stories to tell”.

I asked him where he was from.

He said “Delhi”.

I asked him to travel from Delhi to Mumbai by train.

He said “I’m scared of trains. What if I get robbed?”

I replied “Exactly! There’s your story!”

Do things that will genuinely give you fulfillment.

At the end of the day, I don’t remember how much money I made today or how many big bucks my company is generating. All I think about is what I learned from the world by merely stepping outside.

As for the walk, we did complete the 30 kms! And I’ll be honest, the last kilometer was more difficult than the rest of the journey.