Sixty is the age when many middle-class Indians start thinking of taking it easy. But Gagan Khosla is not your average 60-year-old Indian. He has just completed a 29-day-long, 4,300-km bicycle ride from Leh to Kanyakumari. Talking on the phone, the New Delhi-based entrepreneur explains, “I’ll turn 60 next month and it’s a birthday gift to myself.” That is some gift!
Gagan completed his ride in Kanyakumari and after a break in Anantya Resorts, near Marthandam, travelled to the city to catch a flight to Delhi.
He feels that many Indians approaching 60 tend to think that they are too old for adventures. “They sit in a corner with regret, thinking about all the things that they couldn’t do when they were young. But you really can do a lot. In your 50s you have enough money and a lot of experiences. For doing something like this, all you need to do is to stay healthy”.
Gagan hopes this ride would inspire many such people to fulfil their long-standing wishes. Gagan had planned to do something spectacular for years now, although he wasn’t sure what exactly it should be. He has always been a person who cared about his health and fitness, hitting the gym regularly to remain in shape. But he took up cycling as a serious exercise only in 2006 and has been an active cyclist ever since. And a ride from one end of India to the other is what he finally chose to be that ‘spectacular’ adventure of his. He began on September 20 from Leh.
Every day, Gagan rode from early morning till evening, except on his single-day rest periods at Delhi, Gwalior and Bangalore.
“The toughest part was the Leh-Manali section. Crossing five of the highest mountain passes was particularly taxing yet it was an incredible experience. I had to face a host of problems like sub-zero temperatures, low-oxygen environments and hypothermia. But it was totally worth it,” he says. The extreme temperatures were the biggest difficulties that he had to face during the trip. In the mountains it was extremely cold, while from Chandigarh to Kanyakumari onwards the average temperature was around 36 degree Celsius.
All through the ride he was accompanied by his friends or family members, in bicycles and cars. “From Leh to Bilaspur, my sister-in-law Anju Khosla was following me in a car and from Delhi to Agra it was my wife, Ishi Khosla, nutritionist, writer and researcher. My brother Yogen joined me during the final stretch from Bangalore to Kanyakumari. They have all been extremely supportive.”
Gagan hired a cook to be with him during the complete ride. For such gruelling trips, it is important to have simple and healthy food. “If I had gotten some sort of stomach trouble, then that would have been the end of the trip. So I didn’t take any chances,” he adds.
The bicycle Odyssey was to raise money for scholarships, which will allow students from a weak financial background to attend his alma mater, the prestigious Scindia School in Gwalior. It was also a campaign to create awareness about gluten-related diseases like Celiac disease, and was sponsored by Dr. Ishi, founder of Celiac Society of India.
As for the people that he met, Gagan says there wasn’t a single negative incident. People were thrilled to meet him and pose for selfies with him. “This is a beautiful country. I got hundreds of ‘thumbs-up’ on my way from Leh to Kanyakumari. They were all happy to learn about this ride,” he says proudly.
On October 20, Gagan finished his ‘little’ ride, crossing many cities in 13 states. In a symbolic gesture, he marked the end of his wonderful adventure by pouring the water that he took from the Indus into the Indian Ocean at Kanyakumari. “It was absolutely great and I am fortunate enough to have completed this challenge of mine without any serious health issues or other difficulties,” says Gagan.
