We started our cycling expedition “Road to Tokyo” from Kerala to witness and cheer for the Indian Olympic team at Tokyo’20 Olympics which was expected to start from 24th July. We started on 15th Dec’19 from Kochi, Kerala, and covered TamilNadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, entered Bangladesh, and suppose to cover Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, China, and Japan over a course of 8 months and about 11000 km.

Cycling expedition was not new for Cliffin, Donna, and myself, Haseeb. Cliffin has been traveling for the last few years and his claim to fame is cycling from Dubai to Russia for the 2018 FIFA world cup covering 5000 miles through Iran and Azerbaijan. He has also backpacked in Southeast Asia, Mexico, Cuba. Whereas, Dona was in Mexico when she cycled across Mexico and Cuba. I met Clifin in Russia. The current trip, “Road to Tokyo” was ideated by Clifin to cheer and participate in the Tokyo Olympics. We wanted to support the Indian contingent and spread awareness of the importance of support and promotion for all other sports.

We were enthusiastic about our expedition when we got our special China visa of 60 days (against normal 30 days) but Life takes you by surprise! As the saying goes, “Man Proposes and God Disposes”, the Corona Epidemic got serious while we were in Bangladesh. We had no other options than to move from Bangladesh back into Agartala.

As we crossed the Bangladesh borders, we were quarantined at Agartala for 14 days, initially, at a Government Hospital and after a few days, we were shifted to a Government Guest House. After 14 days of confinement and having tested negative, we were left with no choice to carry forward the expedition and that`s when we contacted Fr. Paul Pudussery from ASHA Holy Cross in Agartala. He was a “God Sent”, without any hesitation, Father offered us accommodation and food at his premises.

We can also feel the warmth of Fathers and sisters in the organisation that we have met here.

It is heartening to see the extent to which organisation goes to help people in these tough times. They are engaged in social service to bring socio-economic and human development and living up to “reaching out to people”. In COVID 19 relief activities, they are helping the health professionals, police personnel, and vulnerable people with the support of Caritas India to provide masks, sanitizers, and dry rations.

We also started helping him in masks making and got involved in making the strings and cloth ready for tailors, helping in distribution, and also in getting the necessary raw materials. We were also involved in procuring, packing and distributing dry food packets to the nearby villages We have already helped in distributing almost 17 thousand masks and food packets for more than 500 families around Tripura.

Though our current plan is pulled off and we would head back to Kerala but we will always be grateful to the Church for supporting us in our times of trouble.