I began my journey in 1993 — the incident that made me so strong! A picnic tour from Kolkata to Puri was being organised by people from my locality and they were charging Rs 400 per person. As I was short of money I told the organisers I would pay Rs 200 and the remaining amount post the tour. But they didn’t trust me and I was unable to go to Puri,” says Satyen Das adding, “So I motivated myself and started my journey on my cousin’s cycle. It took me two days to reach Puri. When I returned home people in my locality taunted me by saying, ‘Go to Varanasi, Allahabad, the Taj Mahal…”
Das’ neighbour Sujit Banerjee asked him to cycle to Darjeeling and he took up the challenge. “I had only Rs 650 in my pocket and I took six days to reach there,” says Das who also learnt to speak Hindi to make his travel easy in North India.
He went to a national integration camp by selling his old rickshaw for Rs 3,000 in 1994. “I returned to my hometown after three years. Back then, our country was more peaceful. India had fewer states — Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand did not exist,” he reminisces. After returning to Kolkata, he would pull rickshaw in the Netaji Nagar area, where he met Manik Sarkar. “He bought me a new rickshaw and supported me and my family,” says Das.
In 2007, Das, along with his wife and two-year-old daughter, went to Puri by rickshaw. In 2008, he visited Vaishno devi shrine from Kolkata via Gaya, Varanasi, Allahabad, Agra, Mathura, Vrindavan, Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Wagah border, Himachal Pradesh, Mandi, Kullu, Manali and Rohtang Pass.
“I started Swachh Bharat Abhiyan much before the current campaign. While returning from the shrine I told villagers in almost every place not to defecate in the open and contaminate the soil and water,” says Das.
Once back in Kolkata, he plied his rickshaw on a different route and happened to meet Debasish Das, who had visited Ladakh and asked Das to make the trip on his cycle rickshaw. “His words inspired me a lot and I resumed my journey. This time, local club presidents and people too helped me a lot. They decorated my rickshaw which cost Rs 12,000, and one of them even registered a postpaid SIM by showing his ID card... It took me two months to reach Ladakh,” says Das.
I went to Ladakh in 2017 and my motto was: ‘Stop Global Warming’. So I carried 5,000 date palm seeds with me, and kept planting the seeds all along the route to Ladakh. I may die in a few days but those plants will remain immortal. They will be giving birth to other plants and will go on providing oxygen to Mother Nature,” says he.
When returning from Ladakh, he gave away his rickshaw to the school of Sonam Wangchuk — yes, the character Aamir Khan played in the movie 3 Idiots. “At least visitors and students there will see that if a rickshaw puller can visit Ladakh, then anyone can do anything,” quips Das.
His friends and family are proud of his achievements. Abdul Salam, a rickshaw puller and Das’ friend says, “We have always supported him and will keep supporting him. He is a gem of a person.”
Das is planning to visit Lahore too. “I have come up with a name too for my tour: — ‘Maitraye Jatra’. I have also applied for documents, but I have to wait for confirmation from the governments of both India and Pakistan,” says Das who believes in the saying ‘nothing is impossible’.
