CHENNAI: Five countries, seven timezones, 52 days and one cause. An eight-member crew, led by Meenakshi Aravind, embarked on a 21,000 km journey in two Tata vehicles from Coimbatore to St Petersburg on August 6, 2018, to spread awareness on cervical cancer. The crew comprised Meenakshi Aravind, Sharath Madhav, Pradeep Yuvaraj, Jomat Mani, Anjana Kaul, Sanjay Subbaiyan, Sheela Varghese and Madhuri Sapru. A year later, four core members from the team shared their adventurous experience at Savera Hotel with the members of The Duchess Club on Thursday.
Beyond comfort zones
The expedition titled XPD Beyond Asia covered important cities and villages in India, Nepal, China, Tibet, and Russia. Rocky terrains, border crossing, extreme weather conditions — nothing deterred these travellers from reaching their destination. “I’ve become more patient, tolerant, and can bite a bullet with ease after this trip. My team stood by my side during the ups and downs. Half of us had met for the first time and the rest of us knew each other. Bonding over some of the toughest times is a rare occurrence and we stuck together,” said Meenakshi, an entrepreneur. Her first long trip was in 2017, covering 24 countries from Coimbatore to London.
Humanity & compassion
This travel has been an eye-opener to the crew members. “The Chinese are staunch believers of taking care of their parents and involving them in every activity. The Russians are passionate and well-informed about their country’s history. Some incidents were also life-changing. Our two cars had to enter Russia through China border, but they refused to let us in despite having proper paperwork. We were stranded on no man’s land. After multiple calls to people from the Indian embassy, we somehow managed to get through,” said Pradeep Yuvaraj.
A trip to remember
Every new journey has a takeaway. Meenakshi treasured every bit of their journey, went live on social media every day with a ‘hello everybody’ and maintained a journal of that day’s accomplishments. “One of our cars broke down. It was minus two degrees and pouring outside. After being rejected at 10 workshops, one person offered to help. It took 15 hours to fix the problem but they never charged a penny. They also sent a mechanic with us until we reached the next country. Moments like these broke me down. We represent India and we need to be mindful of that,” said Meenakshi.