Around India in 22 days

KOCHI: Retirement is generally considered an age to sit idle, but Walanjatil Ninan Duke insists on differing. The 55 year old is just back from his 22-day-long trip on a bike covering a number of places from Kochi to Shimla. He started off on his adventurous trip on April 14, covering Palakkad, Salem, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Jhansi, Delhi, Agra, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and finally reaching Shimla. Covering 7,848 km was ‘grit and endurance’ at the age of 55, he says. But miraculously, he could find peace and harmony in the mountains. “Since I could complete my trip with God’s grace, I wanted to share my experience with youngsters. I believe that if you have imagination you can achieve it and if you have a dream you will reach it by taking the right decision at the right time. That’s my message to the younger generation,” he says.  Travelling through the Indian subcontinent was a very unique and inspiring experience, he says. “During the trip I took a stopover at Ludhiana to visit my old school, hostel and schoolmates.” He adds that his trip also had an element of risk as he narrowly escaped death twice while driving and was once hospitalised for five days due to food poisoning. “I covered the 562 km from Hyderabad to Nagpur in 15 hours 20 minutes and the 494 km from Jhansi to New Delhi in 13 hours 37 minutes,” he says. Duke who had worked as a teacher and vice principal at various institutes also has a good athletic record. He was the best athlete at his college in Ludhiana for two consecutive years and also the Punjab Home Guard best rifle shooter. Duke was working with a private firm at Dubai and is now settled in Kochi. Ask him about his future plans and if they include any such trips he nods affirmatively quoting Robert Frost, “The woods are lovely, dark & deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go, before I sleep,” he says.