The first time I got to hear about the Junglethlon through facebook, I RSVPd blindly considering it to be yet another event and planned to keep it as a backup option. My year end outdoor escapade then was to either ride through Kerala in the second week of December or ride to Araku over the Christmas weekend. Eventually November and December turned out to be pretty hectic, with very little time left to put forth an action plan. With all plans crashing I hesitantly decided to head to Pench for the Junglethlon. Activities abound, days flew by and it was already time for the Pench visit.

The event was for three days starting December 25th. Ram and I had initially decided to reach Nagpur a day in advance and visit the Kanha Wildlife sanctuary. A bit of googling and we realised this plan was not really feasible as Kanha was about 255kms from Nagpur. A day before we depart from Hyderabad, I check with Pradeep on ‘places to visit’ around Nagpur and jot down a couple of locations.

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December 13th:

I can barely keep my head upright. The moment the rick. reaches home, I jump out and deliriously unlock the door, run straight and crash on the bed. The brain defies to accept any more impulses and I sink into oblivion. It’s the first time in twenty four years that I’ve managed to stay awake all through the night! All through these years sleep was never something that I sacrificed for anything whatsoever. But there was something quite electric in the ambience yesterday that just didn’t seem to get the grey cells to seek rest. Right from 23:00hrs yesterday to 11:00hrs today, people have been on a mega frenzy here. After all two and a half months of planning and co-ordination was to be put to test today! Hyderabad was to have it’s first ever social event aimed at raising funds for the underprivileged kids.

WalkOn ‘09 was planned in-line to the previous walks that were conducted in Bangalore as a fund generation event for various projects that Aashayein foundation anchors. Two months of rigorous planning and tremendous pulse check from the core team gets the 40+ volunteers to churn out one of the most interesting events over time in the foundation. Incessant campaigning in various companies and support from few big shots gets the real undercurrent for the event set. We were absolutely overwhelmed by the response the event received. Close to 40% of registrants for the walk actually turn up right on the D-Day just by getting to know about the event through media and news. To get 800+ people waking up at 6:00am in the morning to make it for a walk on one of Hyderabads’ pivotal roads in this crisp, frigid weather is something that calls for a standing ovation!

With a success of this magnitude, we as a foundation are much more obliged to the community to route these funds judiciously to the deserving and it remains imperative that we continue to move ahead in stride making impact in the lives of these not so fortunate kids.

Two and a half months ago when the idea of the Hyderabad walk-on was conceived, I was a quite skeptical of the outcome. It simply didn’t make sense why people would even care to wake up that early on a weekend. Today when I see this sea of humanity sweep out on the Necklace road, it looms on me what the power of conviction and resilience can bring about!

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