Day 1: Chandigarh to Delhi

With PRIP RK Saboo sir flagging off our ride to create awareness among the people of India, we traveled through the busy roads of Panchkula with a unique feeling of pride in us. In around half an hour, we reached Dera Bassi, where we had an interaction session with the Rotary Club of Dera Bassi. We were greeted with great honour and enthusiasm.PP Rtn. Bhupinder Singh ji introduced us to the whole team of the rotary club, and the fellow roatarians showed an equal interest in the interactive session as we both did. It was a new experience for both of us, as we did not have such an exposure before. Anyways, one of the rotarians raised a very nice question i.e. What are we both going to do on our entire expedition to create awareness about the Virus?.

Being the team leader, What I answered was, I want to meet each and single Rotaractor and Rotarian on my way so that I can interact with them, and ask them to visit every household in their area and give a dose of Polio vaccine on the NIDs to every child below 5 years of age. Now, that we have been able to reduce the number of cases of Polio from 740 last year to 41 this year, we should not be careless, rather we should be more cautious now, as this disease may rebound back with a greater virulence (as said by Saboo sir in his speech on 24th December, 2010).

Another Rotarian, asked me to interact with the people in their native language, and ask them whats the main reason behind polio being prominent in their areas. I found his suggestion really very great. So, I will keep such a thing in my mind while interacting with the people of different areas, esp. UP and Bihar, where the cases are found to be more. After the interaction session, we took our lunch and then started off to our destination, Delhi. We were seen off by the Rotarians.

While on our way to Delhi, we met with some real problems. First, A very heavy traffic jam near Sonepat. It was really tiring. Secondly, the bungee cords which were used to hold my bag to the bike, broke and my bag fell on the highway.  It was really a horrible moment for me, as my fellow rider had gone a few miles further.  However, I somehow managed to get the things back to normal and carry on with the ride.
We reached our guest house in Delhi University at around 8:30pm and had our dinner. Then coming back to my room, I am sharing this blog with you all.  :)