Out to fulfil 70-yr-old mom’s wishes, Karnataka man takes her on a scooter-pilgrimage across India

Harsha Raj Gatty
November 24, 2018

Leaving the comforts of his marketing job, this 39-year old man is taking his aged mother on a religious pilgrimage across the country. Interestingly, the mother and son duo that has already covered nearly 28,000 kilometres so far has been travelling on a scooter.

Kerala, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra; D Krishna Kumar and his mother 70-year old mother Choodarathna have been making a stopover at each and every temple in the region. "Not many may believe, but in the last 10 months we have covered over 40,000 of such religious places, big or small we surely make it a point to visit those places," Kumar says.

Having lost her husband in 2015, in a casual conversation, Choodarathna confided to her son over her inability of not being able to see many places, especially Belur and Halebidu. "I felt terrible when she said that, having travelled across Karnataka due to my profession, I felt guilty for not being able to accommodate such small request of my mother," Krishna said.

He adds, her entire life Choodarathna had dedicated herself within the four walls of the 10 member joint family in Mysuru, without any friends or social life of her own. Though she is qualified as a Hindi teacher, yet she did not take up a job, and instead decided to dedicate herself to her family. Krishna adds that he received her utmost care and attention when he grew up.

"It was her selflessness that triggered me more to do something for her, so after 13 years being thoroughly employed, I decided to call quits from the job and decided to fulfill her wishes," Krishna says. On January 15, this year, Choodarathna decided to venture on the religious pilgrimage from Mysuru. "Initially we started with Kerala, later we moved towards other places," he says.

Incidentally, during the course of the journey, Krishna Kumar sprang a surprise to his mother by taking her to the house of her childhood friends, whom she was out of contact.  “I am so thankful for my son for getting me in touch with Chandramathi (Sagar, Shivamogga) and Kaje Jayalaxmi (Vittal, Dakshina Kannada). Have never seen them since the teacher training course over 47-years ago. Unlike these days, we didn't have phone or internet to remain in touch," she adds.

Besides fuel, Krishna says there is no major expense incurred on them, although for close to 10 months now a little over a lakh has been spent on the journey. “We are never at a hurry, depending on our interest we move from one place to another, therefore we cannot exactly say how much time we will take to complete our journey and destination,” he says. All through the journey, Choodarathnamma says that they did not stay in a hotel and usually consumed fruits and prepared curry out of vegetables that were made available to them. "We stay at mutts or temples, sometimes locals invite us at their residences. We consume food from the temples and even take water for consumption. By God’s grace, I never had health issues and we never fell ill during the journey," she adds.

On being asked, why they preferred scooter, Krishna says that it was his father who gifted him the scooter in 2001. "I am very emotionally attached to this Bajaj Chetak. I feel that my father is along with me and I am only like a charioteer taking both my parents for the place of their liking," he says.

Comments

MOHAMMED SHARIEF
 - 
Sunday, 25 Nov 2018

Really, its a pricless bound 

SD
 - 
Saturday, 24 Nov 2018

Wow! One lucky mom...

God bless the young man

Joseph Stalin
 - 
Saturday, 24 Nov 2018

Inspiring. Lovely don and mother

Reshma kodialbail
 - 
Saturday, 24 Nov 2018

Such a nice son. His wife is the luckiest wife. One who care his mother will care his wife also. He will respect women

Subbu Acharya
 - 
Saturday, 24 Nov 2018

man.. You did great. Always care your mother. make her happy. God bless you

Vinod
 - 
Saturday, 24 Nov 2018

Wow.. great.. son should be like this. 

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News Network
January 6,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 6: There is a wide spread criticism by the Janata Dal(S) and Congress leaders over a proposal to rename Ramanagaram district as New (Nava) Bengaluru, Karnataka Chief Minister CM Yediyurappa said on Monday.

“An unnecessary discussion on renaming Ramanagaram is under way. There is no thought before the government over renaming," The CM accused the Congress and JD(S) leaders of indulging in baseless discussion to mislead the people and to remain relevant. "There is no such agenda before the government. It is a joke that JD(S) and Congress leaders are starting a fight over it.”

The Chief Minister’s clarification came after criticism by former Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy, who carved out the Ramanagaram district when he was Chief Minister, and former Minister DK Shivakumar whose Kanakapura constituency is in Ramanagaram district, after Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan said Ramanagaram could be renamed as Nava Bengaluru to increase investments prospects.

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coastaldigest.com news network
May 9,2020

Mangaluru, Ma 9: Three more persons from Bantwal taluk in Dakshina Kannada district tested positive for Covid-19 today. All three are members of a family.

The infection is reportedly linked to First Neuro Hospital of Mangaluru, which has emerged as a coronavirus hub in coastal Karnataka.

With this, the total number of coronavirus cases in the district mounted to 31 including six outsiders. Three of them have lost their lives. Currently there are 15 active cases in the district.

The newly identified coronavirus patients are a 30-year-old man and two elderly women aged 60 and 70 years.

They have contracted the infection from a 69-year-old man from Bantwal who was confirmed with COVID-19 infection on May 1. All the three members now infected belong to his family.

The man had got the infection from a woman identified as P-390. He happens to be a relative and neighbour of the deceased woman who belonged to Bantwal Kasaba village. Eight  members of his family were quarantined, of whom three tested positive today.

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News Network
April 2,2020

The current physical distancing guidelines provided by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may not be adequate to curb the coronavirus spread, according to a research which says the gas cloud from a cough or sneeze may help virus particles travel up to 8 metres. The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, noted that the the current guidelines issued by the WHO and CDC are based on outdated models from the 1930s of how gas clouds from a cough, sneeze, or exhalation spread.

Study author, MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba, warned that droplets of all sizes can travel 23 to 27 feet, or 7-8 metres, carrying the pathogen.

According to Bourouiba, the current guidelines are based on "arbitrary" assumptions of droplet size, "overly simplified", and "may limit the effectiveness of the proposed interventions" against the deadly pandemic.

 She explained that the old guidelines assume droplets to be one of two categories, small or large, taking short-range semi-ballistic trajectories when a person exhales, coughs, or sneezes.

However based on more recent discoveries, the MIT scientist said, sneezes and coughs are made of a puff cloud that carries ambient air, transporting within it clusters of droplets of a wide range of sizes.

Bourouiba warned that this puff cloud, with ambient air entrapped in it, can offer the droplets moisture and warmth that can prevent it from evaporation in the outer environment.

"The locally moist and warm atmosphere within the turbulent gas cloud allows the contained droplets to evade evaporation for much longer than occurs with isolated droplets," she said.

"Under these conditions, the lifetime of a droplet could be considerably extended by a factor of up to 1000, from a fraction of a second to minutes," the researcher explained in the study.

The MIT scientist, who has researched the dynamics of coughs and sneezes for years, added that these droplets settle along the trajectory of a cough or sneeze contaminating surfaces, with their residues staying suspended in the air for hours.

"Even when maximum containment policies were enforced, the rapid international spread of COVID-19 suggests that using arbitrary droplet size cutoffs may not accurately reflect what actually occurs with respiratory emissions, possibly contributing to the ineffectiveness of some procedures used to limit the spread of respiratory disease," Bourouiba wrote in the study

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