Mother on shoulder, 'Shravan' has been on pilgrimage for 20 yrs, walked 37,000 km

Agra: Kailash Giri doesn't remember when, but it was one day long ago when his mother Kirti Devi told him that she would like to go on a pilgrimage of all the four main dhams, the Char Dham that is holy to Hindus, and that she would like to do it on foot. That moment changed Giri's life, setting him off on a journey that is now in its 20th year. He has walked 36,582 km, and is still on the road.
A resident of Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, Giri, now 48, like Shravan in the Ramayana who promised to take his old parents to 40 of the country's shrines, says his mother, 92 and blind, has only this journey to look forward to.
"I was 28 when I started on this. I am almost 50 now," Giri told TOI as he passed through Agra on Tuesday en route to Mathura. "I have to complete this yatra, both for myself and my mother. I have travelled for 20 years, I will walk for a few more."
Giri, who straps a basket on his shoulder in which Kirti Devi sits, said the pilgrimage started in February 1996 from his hometown and has now entered its last leg. The immediate destination is Mathura's Banke Bihari temple, dedicated to Lord Krishna, which he will reach on Wednesday.
Asked what keeps him going and if he doesn't miss the things most men his age hold dear, like a career and family, Giri said his destiny is "something else". As a small group of people gathered around him, he smiled at them and said, “I was 14 when I fell from a tree and would have surely died had my mother not taken care of me and prayed day in and day out. I owe my life to her. That gives me strength and moves me."
Giri added, “My mother has no one except me. My brother and sister died and my father passed away when I was 10 years old. Who else could have fulfilled her wish, except me?”
The man who doesn't like to call himself Shravan, "though many call me that", starts his day every morning at about 6.30 am and stops before the sun gets too hot. “I start again in the evening for a couple of hours and we travel 4 to 5 km daily,” he said, adding, "My experience of travelling through the country has been beautiful. There are wonderful people in India, who selflessly help us. We survive on donations and food that they give us. It's always enough."
In Agra for a day, Giri said he will take a small detour and see the Taj Mahal. "This one is important," he nodded. "I will add this, too, to the long list of temples and shrines we have been to -- Kashi, Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, Rameshwaram, Tirupati, Puri, Janakpur (Nepal), Kedarnath, Rishikesh, Haridwar, Dwarka, Mahabaleshwar. It's a long list."