Travelling unfettered across 10 countries in Asia by road
Lakshmi Dhuta had two pathways ahead of her when she set out to write a book on the Avadhutas — little-known seers who study transcending dualities in nature to find a harmonious core.
Ms. Dhuta’s first path was academic research. The second, the road less taken, was to travel and observe such a life first-hand. She chose the latter.
She is helped in her effort by Jayakumar Dinamani, an avid traveller in his 50s, with impaired limbs and diminished cardiac function, supported by a heart implant. Ms. Dhuta’s mother, Ajitha C.S., a retired homeopath, and T.P. Sajikumar, a retired agricultural officer, are also her fellow travellers.
Together, they have travelled 500,000 km, criss-crossing India over the last 10 years, and they are now on a road trip across 10 countries in Asia. Mr. Dinamani is the most travelled in the group, having clocked over 12 lakh km in the past 20 years. The group’s previous journey was just after the pandemic to India’s borders, with a message of goodwill in times of crisis.
They began their journey in Kochi on April 16 in a sports utility vehicle (SUV) given to them by Swami Gurukulam, an institution that offers Ayurvedic treatment. So far, they have journeyed through Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, where they were detained as Bangladesh claimed it was not signatory to the Transports Internationaux Routiers (TIR) Convention that facilitates international road travel. “But some good souls offered help,” Ms. Dhuta said.
They are now in the process of shipping their vehicle to Malaysia, from where they will resume their travel to Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei, and if possible, Burma.
The stories they find on their forthcoming journey will form the book Mahavadhutam that Ms. Dhuta, a graduate in communication, is writing in English, and with plans for translating it into several languages. On this journey, they have no itinerary other than to find resources for the book, she said.
“Our travels so far have been through the rugged remoteness of southern Bhutan; high land leading to the cave of the Tibetan saint Milarepa in Helambu, Nepal; and the borderlands of India that open towards the Jaldapara wilderness. We even met lesser known tribes, including the Totos, descendants of the Mongols,” Mr. Dinamani said.
Their journey is inspired by the Union government’s ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebrating 75 years of India’s Independence. They are supported by friends, and groups such as the Delhi-based Servants of the People Society.
Their unfettered travel is “about finding that every being in this world is part of a unified whole,” Mr. Dinamani said. “We are in no hurry. Life, for us, is travel. We will do that till our end.”