GOODNESS COMES RIDING A BICYCLE

We all have our fears. We all are good deep down in our hearts, but we cover ourselves for
protection so that no one can hurt us.
— Mrigendra Singh, cyclist

Mrigendra Singh cycled from Bangalore to Lucknow and now Dehradun, Delhi and
Rajasthan are on his list.
The Lucknowite recently covered around 2,300 kilometres from Bangalore to Lucknow, on his ordinary geared bicycle loaded with waterproof saddle bags, in 18 days just to prove that hope is a good thing when it comes to trusting fellow human beings. “The world is a good place and we should trust people rather than doubting them all the time,” he says.
The New Hyderabad locality resident traversed through Hyderabad, Nagpur, Seoni, Jabalpur, Rewa and Allahabad to reach the state capital cycling in the day and resting by night. “Wherever I went, people told me that their place is good, but people in other towns and cities are bad. And this made me believe that Indians in every town, city or state are equally good and helpful,” he says pointing out that people offered him water, tea and discounted lodging all through the trip “with a lot of generosity in their hearts.
The sprightly youngster whose life’s mantra is to “be positive and follow your heart,” says everyone who waved at him en-route gave him the much required energy to complete the mission. However, the real inspiration to embark on the cycling expedition came from his sister who was about to get married. “I wanted to gift my sister something beyond the mundane material stuff. So I decided to dedicate this trip to her and it became her wedding gift,” says the former student of Colvin Taluqdar’s College, who has planned his next trip to Dehradun and the Uttarakhand hills in the spring of 2016.

Ahead of his Bangalore– Lucknow trip, the not so techsavvy Mrigendra learnt to use a
smartphone with a little help from his friends and then created Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts to update everyone about his mission. “Although I have cycled before, I did not document my trips. However, this time, I posted some pictures and will come up with a journal too, as I want to share my story and prove that the world is indeed a beautiful place,” he tells HT City.

According to him, fear is something that locks up our goodness most of the time. “We all have our fears. We all are good deep down in our hearts, but we cover ourselves for protection so that no one can hurt us,” he says, adding it takes time to open up to strangers. Citing the example of one Santosh Rao, he met in Kamareddy of Telengana, he recalls, “Along the way, just to test how fear engulfs us, I knocked on three doors and asked the occupants if I could stay with them for the night and none of them agreed. However, Santosh, who lived in the next house, said yes. But when I asked him why he was allowing a stranger to put up in his house, fear gripped his mind. Although I didn’t stay at his house, we did become good friends.” He further says that fear happens for a few nano seconds and “we have to go beyond it to experience life and its goodness”.

Post Dehradun, Mrigendra wants to cycle all the way to Rajasthan, via Delhi, and even beyond, to share his tales of hope and optimism about people and inspire as many along the way.