When young, least did she know she would one day do something adventurous. Neither did she do something of the sort until she started her career. But unlike many with a dream of doing something adventurous since childhood, she suddenly developed a liking for cycling just less than a couple of years ago. And today, this young Mysorean has succeeded in cycling upto Leh in Jammu & Kashmir from Manali in Himachal Pradesh in a span of 14 days.
Sahana Murthy, 24, a Mysorean based at Bangalore, is a young and enthusiastic adventure cyclist. For this girl, it was a sudden instinct that made her develop a liking to cycle which makes her story special. And such is the love for her passion that she not just wanted to go on a long and challenging cycling expedition but even succeeded in doing so by cycling 600 km from Manali to Leh and from there to Khardung-La — the world’s highest motorable Pass.
Come, let’s learn of her experience:
“It was once in a life-time experience. I along with three other friends — Krishna Vasudeva Rao from Mysore, Kamakshi Sahai and Rajeev Agarwal — started cycling from Manali and would cycle upto 40-50 km in a span of 8 hrs per day,” says Sahana, daughter of city-based scientist Vindhya Murthy and businessman Raghavendra Murthy.
Sahana works as an Operations Associate at Genpact, Bangalore. Talking of the expedition, she said, “it was a major challenge altogether, especially for a person like me for whom everything associated with it was a first time experience.”
On a cycle with a load of 20 kilos that included everything from their camping tents to food and clothing, it was a taxing task, she says. “The very first day we started cycling, it began to rain and continued for three days. Our clothes were wet yet we had to continue cycling as we hadn’t carried many clothes to avoid extra load. But we weren’t deterred by it. Three days later, the weather turned sunny so much so that it then became difficult to bear the heat. A few hours after we started cycling, the skin started peeling off and the combination of the cold went and scorching sun was literally killing us. Yet we continued. By the end of the day, we would halt in tent-like restaurants where we would get some food, rest by night and start by 8 am the next morning post breakfast.”
Each day, each step was a challenge, she recalls. “We had to motivate ourselves every minute as it was emotionally, physically and mentally very demanding. We had to cycle upon a vehicle with heavy load, pass by steep uphills, eat only dryfruits, biscuits and chocolates as we could find no food anywhere until we reached a certain destination by dusk and even remained with no shower for 13 days.
Especially for girls, the expedition was tough, she says adding “The tents we would halt at would be shared by many people and mostly guys which would make me and my friend Kamakshi insecure at times. But the day I reached Khardung-La, I was the happiest.”
But it is because of her parents support and backing from her friends and office that she could manage to achieve her goal, she says. It was no easy thing for my parents to let me go on such an expedition. However, they trusted me and did not come in my way of my happiness because of which I have done this today, says Sahana and adds: “I will be soon learning paragliding and mountaineering too and go on cycle expeditions as well. Being a girl, it was not at all easy to strain myself the way I did, get tanned so horribly that my skin almost looked charred. I came back with loads of knee pain, back ache and sores in the leg. Yet, when people complimented me for having reached the world’s highest motorable Pass on cycle, all else would fly off my mind, making me feel proud of my achievements.” —AN
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / September 23rd, 2013
