[1]They said he was too old for it. But this did not dampen the spirits of 62-year-old Thomas Chacko, a Kochi-based motoring buff, when he decided to embark on a ‘see-India’ mission that would take him around 25,000 km through the 28 states of India and also through the mountainous country of Bhutan, on a four-wheeler.
The adventurer was confident that he could complete the journey in 80 days as he was eager to discover the unseen India. To everybody’s surprise Thomas Chacko plumped for a Tata Nano as his driving companion.
The senior citizen went through 18 states and 17 capitals and reached Kochi on Friday, after setting off from Mumbai on May 3.
During the past six-weeks, Chacko touched Indore, Bhopal, Varanasi, Patna, Kolkata, Gangtok, Darjeeling, Shillong, Guwahati, Dimapur, Imphal, Agartala, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Rameshwaram and Thiruvananthapuram, before he touched base in Kochi.He also went to Bhutan for a brief spell.
From Kochi, he will motor down to Goa via Gokarna and later move on to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Diu, Dwaraka, Kashmir, Shimla, Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Raipur and Nagpur before turning off his engine at Mumbai in the third week of July.
“The root-bridges in Shillong, the Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh, the Farrakka Barrage near Siliguri and Dhanushkodi are the loveliest and most memorable places I have been to during this trip,” says Thomas Chacko.
He hastens to add that he has been in the pink of health so far. “I did not have much trouble on my way, except once when my car got stuck in the mud while crossing Arunachal Pradesh,” he said.
Links:
[1] http://archive.asianage.com/16-k-nano-3jpgcropdisplayjpg-902