BENGALURU: It wasn’t just the greenery and resplendent mountains, rather the diverse and assorted ways of life found around the country that led 34-year-old Jordan Thomas to depart from Bengaluru and tour India on road albeit as a solo traveller. However, the inspiration behind his travels across the country was his fiancé’s death in 2016. Thomas’ fiancé (Jenifer) fought a prolonged battle with breast cancer for many years.
An emotional Thomas, who had seen his fiancé and childhood love succumb to a slow demise, recollects how he promised her to touch peoples lives in a different way. It was then that he decided to travel across the country with an aim to spread awareness on breast cancer among women. “I just wanted to do something that would give back not just to the people who helped us, but to all those women who fight breast cancer,” asserts Thomas.
He emphasises on Valentine’s Day being of great significance as he will continue on what he had promised his fiance on this ‘day of love’. “I have been on a country exploration with no mode of transportation except cars and bikes. I started from Bengaluru, went on to six other states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and reached Andaman and Nicobar Islands. From there I travelled to Gujarat where I stayed for 53 days covering almost 600 kilometres before coming back to Karnataka,” affirms Thomas. His last trip took him to Mumbai, and Thomas returned to city on Sunday. He interacted with youngsters from various organisations where he conveyed some motivational words on facing hurdles in life.
An associate software engineer at Global Techies, Thomas works simultaneously during his travels and has conducted over 87 workshops since starting this initiative on December 12, 2016. Since the time he took up the task of travelling around the country to talk about breast cancer, he has abided by the practice of travelling in the day and retiring by sunset. He carries a tent along with him and takes short breaks in between his travel.
“Each hamlet and city is different. I have stayed in a lot of homes; some were posh while others were slums and huts with thatched roofs. Such wide-ranging revelation makes me wealthy in terms of travelling,” he narrates. Reciting the snags that he often comes across during his travel, he says he has to counter inner and outer impediments and quoted instances where he had to struggle uder scorching heat and freezing cold weather. His plan is to travel to 40-45 countries and spread maximum awareness on breast cancer.