First steps into the yatra

I reached Mumbai early in the morning. It was quite a magnetic welcome. One good lady helped me reach the venue Ravindra Kalakshetra with ease. I had quite a lot of luggage to pull. Somehow managed to reach the venue and Bhumish, a nice guy who got the green signal to join yatra previous night. He had simply jumped into the ocean.That gave me some idea as to how much yatra would take me by a surprise.I was on a super money saver mode, dint go lodge, just used the facilities at the venue.
We all registered ourselves ,had our first breakfast and a small medical examination followed. By this time I had known 10 people and slowly people were tagging each other. Around 11A.M we started shifting the bags into the buses. All the bags were tagged well. Initially people were moving the bags one by one single handedly. In 15 minutes we switched to intelligent mode making long human chain and began passing the bags smartly. This was the first group task( some 20 people worked here, to shift around 2000 bags).
We were informed that there will be 20 groups. I was in J group. This was one the classic groups which had people who were engineers, theatre artists,an ad maker, a communication student, a potential businessman,a village guy who was trying to gain foothold in busy pune and some kids who wanted to explore the country in their own ways. The number of girls in the yatra signified the revolution happening in India.
They were confident young women who had dared to see the phenomenon called India.
Though everyone was speaking to one another, the real ice breaking moment was not seen on day one. To kill time people were writing names in each other's notebook. For a person like this was a torture. Because there is no sense in such exchanges.
Lunch was great and made people feel comfurtable. We all enjoyed the food and pep talk . The inaugural event was really cool. Some nice people who would be the commanders of ship introduced themselves to all of us. These were young and bright people who had gone through ups and downs of life , and are steering big organizations. Shashank,Revathi, sawpnil, ashutosh and many more people spoke. There were many interesting people on board as part of committee who never spoke on stage but were equally brilliant. Siddharth kak, the surabhi serial fame spoke about his quite hair raising pan India tour on bicycle. Shashank Mani set the mood of the event by speaking about the spirit of yatra. The jagriti geet written by Prasoon Joshi and beautifully choreographed by Gauri was sung in the hall. Initially we were singing and by the end of yatra we were feeling it and humming it. This song is now an anthem for many of us. It is simple, crisp. You can hear it here.

Before the yatra.

I am an engineer working in Bangalore. I am like the millions of corpses that shuttle between office and trash place not knowing what to do. I met Prashant who told me about tata jagriti yatra for about 5 to 10 minutes. As usual I was a on high talking about the school in the village, the gram swaraj and many other ideas. Ideas are just ideas, easy to talk and hard to work with. Like all other poor fellows he heard my speech.
He explained some fine points of the yatra and the spirit behind this event.This time I heard with good concentration and some how the idea was a hit. I decided to go for it. I knew it would be difficult to manage the time but I was up for it.
Then went to their website www.jagritiyatra.com and wrote almost 10 to 12 essays in one night. Nearly 8000 words were stuffed into the application. It was goddamn 3AM when I slept. It was for the first time I was awake for a good cause. The essays were about how I see India today and what are my plans for an enabled India.
In a month or so I got the letter of acceptance. Arranging funds was not a problem. But the time was definitely a factor as I was doing my masters and had taken around 15 days leave in december. Asking for another 18 days in the same time frame( dec to jan 11) looked odd. And many of close friends rejected the idea saying that dont go for such an event and usual confusions followed. But I was going firm on the thought of attending the event day after day. One day Sushant(perhaps one of the few people who take decisions by standing in others shoes, and 99 times very good ones) told me not to miss it. Then my yatra was cemented completely. There was no looking back. My dabang character silenced all the draggers. I told my manager in the company that I have got such and such opportunity n she gave silent consent. I think she is one the rare managers who think normally and act accordingly. I thanked her for allowing me to pursue this yatra and booked the tickets.
Bangalore to Dharwad
Dharwad to Mumbai..

Finished my masters exams, shopped for a good 4000 on clothing, this time khadi and wollen clothings. I appreciated their importance in the course of yatra. Initially it was passion and love for gandhian thoughts on khadi, later I realized how right he was in identifying the super star among all the clothings.
I boarded the bus to mumbai from my home town,said good bye to amma and arya. Arya gave some hints about mumbai and mom cautioned me about traffic n all. I was upbeat as I boarded the train. Spoke to sushant about the yatra and slept. All of a sudden Aarthi, another fellow yatri inspired by Prashant called me up, asking me whether I could join her on the way to the venue. I said yes, numerous fone calls and messages were exchanged, ultimately we both dint meet till 10th day of yatra. You can imagine how busy the yatra was..