Life & Style | People
It's in the genes
Most people celebrate retirement by kicking off their shoes and settling into their favourite reclining chair at home. Not R.K. Jain. This man decided to do something much different.
- Suchitra Bajpai Chaudhary, Senior Feature Writer, Friday
- Published: 00:00 October 30, 2009
- Image Credit: Supplied
R.K. Jain he turned 58 and retired as major general from the Indian Army, he decided to celebrate the occasion by taking off to England on his Kinetic Honda two-wheeler. He covered the 9,000km in 33 days, passing through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Europe.
Why would anyone want to hurl themselves into an adventure after nearly a lifetime of long, hard, slog overs? Because, he replies, adventure of the real kind makes a man stronger. "I had been in the army since the age of 16. I had come to love the tough routines, the discipline, where we were always pushed to deliver our best. As a mechanical engineer, I often had to accompany the armoured regiment. In one regiment, we would move with 48 tanks and when a tank got stuck in soft ground, we had to dig and pull it out with the help of a recovery vehicle. This took nearly four to six hours at a stretch. All through my life I'd faced these kinds of adrenaline-pumping situations and I guess I got hooked on them. When I retired I was still looking for more thrills.
"Adventure involves [facing and overcoming] several challenges. When you overcome them, it gives you great confidence and the belief that you can overcome anything," he says. "I was always passionate about my scooter and had longed to do some sort of feat on it. Retirement gave me a lot of free time" and he decided to stretch his limits.
Interestingly, R.K. Jain is not the only one in his family who has been bitten by the adventure bug. His son Rajeev and grandson Sohail never miss an opportunity to take off on an adventure. A decade or so after his amazing Delhi-London scooter trip, R.K. Jain strapped on his helmet once again. In 2004, at the age of 71, he decided to take along 47-year old Rajeev on a, you guessed it, scooter trip to Singapore. The duo set off on their 115cc Kinetic Honda scooters traversing through Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia before reaching Singapore. They covered the 5,000km journey in 17 days.
Rajeev, a banker in Dubai, decided to fly back to Dubai because "I had limited leave days'' but R.K. Jain had other plans. He flew from Singapore to Australia and scootered from Sydney to Brisbane on the Pacific Highway - a distance of 3,000km - all on his own.
As if these trips were not enough Jain Sr decided to go on yet another journey on his faithful two-wheeler in 2007, this time traversing 4,500km from Delhi to Chennai (in South India) passing through Nagpur, Hyderabad and Bangalore. On the way he made it a point to stop at schools and inspire young boys to take on tough challenges in life.
One boy who did so was his grandson, 21-year-old Sohail.
Keen to follow in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, the final year student at the Richard Ivy Business School in Canada decided to undertake the arduous climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro early this summer.
Choosing the Machawe route, Sohail set off on August 1 and reached the summit seven days later.
"People have many different ways to gain self-fulfilment. Adventure runs in my family and I pretty much realised that what my grandfather and father did was something I could do too,'' says Sohail. "I wanted to prove to myself that I could meet the challenge of climbing the mountain.''
This victory, he knew, would stand him in good stead all his life. "It was also an opportunity for me to get out of my comfort zone and do something challenging. Plus it gave me a great opportunity to reflect," he says.
Sohail's grandfather was in Dubai recently to congratulate him on his successful climb.
Apart from the mental energy that is required to attempt such adventures what helps R.K. Jain to successfully undertake them is his physical stamina. Being in the army made him lead a disciplined life and even after retirement he continues to take physical conditioning seriously. At 76, he is a regular yoga practitioner, an avowed vegetarian and walks 7km a day.
Looking back on his life he is happy that he joined the army at 16. "My father was a judge and wished his four children would join the services. And we did. One of my brothers joined the Navy and another the Air Force. My sister ended up as a doctor in the army."
R.K. Jain wanted to follow in the footsteps of his elder brother and join the air force but "my father insisted that I join the army so I enrolled at the Indian Military Academy in Dehradun''.
However, the teenager found the going really tough there and wanted to return home. "I wrote to my father and told him so,'' says Jain, "but he would have none of it.
"Left with no choice, I decided to give my best to the services.'' With hindsight he is thankful to his father "for advising me to hang in there. In a matter of a month, I adjusted rather well to tough army routine and began to enjoy its rigours. I gave my 100 per cent to it and even today I live by the army credo which is: safety, honour and welfare of your country first; welfare of the men you command next and your own welfare last always and every time."
So ingrained is the army credo in his being that he tried to instil the same spirit in the hearts and minds of his son and grandson. "I always hoped that I could inspire my son and grandson the way my father inspired me. I think it is important to nurture a spirit of adventure and sacrifice in young people today who are easily mislead into a lot of vices if they are idle. I just didn't want to preach to my son and grandson but after retirement, I decided to set an example for them."
The best way he felt he could do so was by undertaking a challenge - a solo journey across Asia to Europe right up to London, on his faithful two wheeler. The 9,000km-long route did not deter him and despite protests from family, he set about seeking visas and permits to travel through all the countries in his itinerary.
Of course there were a few spills along with the thrills on each trip but he persevered with the determination of a lone soldier.
"In Germany I was hit by a vehicle and thrown up high in the air when I took a wrong turn on a road. Undeterred, I continued driving for five hours (nearly 20km to the Strasbourg border) after that with broken lights and bent axle. I reached the home of the family with whom I was planning to stay, changed the bulbs of my scooter but had to continue on my drive for 900km in France with that bent axle as I had no time for repairs.
"I crossed at Calais and went by ferry to London. As soon as I touched hard ground, I fell prostrate unable to believe that I had achieved what I had set out to."
The feat inspired his son Rajeev to accompany him for the second adventure on a similar two-wheeler, in 2007, from India to Singapore.
It was an arduous and unforgettable journey. "I'd done quite a few exciting things like going up in small planes, but ever since I turned a banker, I hadn't done anything as exciting as those trips undertaken by my father," says Rajeev. Also, he had not taken the handlebars of a scooter for nearly 20 years.
"I decided to do this trip because I needed to prove something to myself and my son Sohail," he recalls. "The bank granted me leave to live my dream. At first getting visas was tough and I spent a good part of my leave getting them organised. Later when we came to the Myanmar border, we had to camp there for nearly four days because of a minor hitch. We survived on sugarcane juice. Once we entered Myanmar the real adventure began. The roads were treacherous and there were other threats as well. We had to be careful.
The terrain was tough and because there were no petrol pumps anywhere, we had to carry fuel in bottles. Owing to this a lot of dirt got into the carburettor and our scooters were hiccuping almost every hour. At one stage my scooter completely packed up.
"Since we had no knowledge of repairing it, we had to make a call to the army camp in Dimapur (in Nagaland, north east India) from where one man gave us directions over the phone on how to get the scooter started again.
"Myanmar was also the most challenging because we didn't know the local language and had to use a variety of gestures to communicate with the locals. But the experience gave me a quick lesson on leadership and taking the initiative besides giving us an insight into the lives of such beautiful people.
"The people of Myanmar have large hearts. We were treated to the most amazing hospitality, warmth, love and affection and that was an endearing experience for me. It was my own experience that spurred me to inspire my son into undertaking an adventure."
Although R.K. Jain has a stent in his heart (it was placed last year), he is still gung-ho, at 76, about setting out on yet another adventure on his two-wheeler.
He keeps making short trips to neighbouring states from New Delhi and harbours the dream of one last long trip to drive through all the national highways of India starting off from Delhi through Kolkata, Mumbai, Tamil Nadu and back to Delhi.
"I am trying to leave a legacy for my family and for all younger people. I want to tell the youth of today that besides the satisfaction of fulfilling an arduous ambition, adventure keeps you so busy that it will leave little time for futile distractions."
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