From The Latest Issue: The Long Way Around

I heard the story of Philippides when I was a child. He was the Greek messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greeks’ victory over the Persians. He ran roughly 40 km, delivered the message and died. It became a legend, almost a mythical story. And that, in a way, is where the idea of the marathon came from.

When the Mumbai Marathon was announced in 2003, I thought I should at least do one. I ran the half-marathon and was completely hooked. I remember thinking, ‘‘This is incredible.’’ I had always been interested in sport, but running changed the way I understood movement. It also changed the way I travelled.

When I was younger, travel had a purpose. I started swimming competitively when I was about nine, so I travelled all over India for competitions and training camps—mostly by train, sometimes by bus. I remember travelling to Calcutta once without a ticket, sitting on my suitcase for 36 hours. When you are young, you don’t think too much about the journey. You just have to get there. Later, modelling took me around the world, but it was running that made travel interesting to me. Now, I don’t really travel to see monuments, I travel for an event, and then I run around the city. You see a city differently when you run 40 km through it. You notice the streets, the people, the food. The city becomes alive in a completely different way.

In India, it happens almost every Sunday. I am invited to flag off a running event somewhere in the country, sometimes in a city, sometimes in a small town or village, sometimes somewhere so remote that it takes 10 or 14 hours to get there. I don’t mind the journey. In fact, the more remote it is, the more interesting I find it.

I remember going to Arunachal Pradesh for some of these events. There might be a small running group organising a race, and around it you suddenly find the music, the clothes, the food and the folk traditions of the place. Everything feels very connected to how people actually live. That feels far more meaningful to me than visiting somewhere simply because it is famous. Food is a big part of this. In the Northeast, seasonal vegetables and insects like silkworm are deeply connected to the landscape and local way of life. You can only really understand that by being there.

Moving Through Landscapes

I have always been drawn to landscapes. Forests, hills and the coastline are probably my favourite parts of India. Around Mumbai, we are lucky to have the Sahyadris, with their hills, forests and forts. The Northeast has extraordinary forests, as do the Nilgiris and Madhya Pradesh. I like forests because you never quite know what will happen. You might see a tiger, or nothing at all. There is always that possibility. And I think the best way to experience a landscape is to move through it slowly. That is probably why some of my most memorable journeys have also been some of the hardest.

One of the toughest treks I have done was to Kedarnath over the old pilgrim route. It was almost 40 km over two days, going above 15,000 ft before coming down towards Kedarnath. There was barely a path in places. At some points, we had to crawl up the hillside, holding on to clumps of grass. Looking back, I realised how risky it had been. But once you start, you have to finish. That is how I think about most things. You don’t stand there wondering how you are going to get to the end. You just keep moving.

That is also what draws me to Ladakh. I have travelled through Ladakh many times, and it remains one of my favourite places in India to walk. I once went trekking there with Sonam Wangchuk because he was trying to promote walking tourism rather than simply taking a taxi from one sight to another. That idea made complete sense to me. When you walk from place to place, you experience the landscape rather than just passing through it.

That is how I like to travel, wherever I can. In a new city, my wife and I might walk for seven or eight hours. In the countryside, we might run or cycle between places. Every year in December, we do what we call the Last Long Run, travelling through a different part of India or abroad and covering around 100 or 120 km over two days. Sometimes we pass through forests and farmland without seeing another person for hours. Then we have to find somewhere to eat, which might mean knocking on the door of somebody’s house and asking for food.

Running Is Experiencing

A few years ago, I ran from Delhi to Mumbai. It was about 1,500 km and took me 30 days. I have run from Jhansi to Delhi, from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, and from Mumbai to Pune. This year, instead of running, my wife and I cycled from Delhi to Vrindavan and back. We visited the temples along the way. For me, that is travel.

I have always believed that travel gives you perspective. When you look at some of the ancient temples in India, you wonder how human beings managed to carve such extraordinary detail with the technology they had. Or rather, didn’t have. You realise what people are capable of. Living in a city, you don’t always get challenged enough to understand your own capacity. Travel makes you understand your own potential.

There are still many parts of India I haven’t seen properly. I want to travel through Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and into the interiors of Tripura, Mizoram and Nagaland. And I would like to do it on foot. I have also had this idea for years: travelling from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, perhaps running and cycling parts of the way, and eventually swimming across to Sri Lanka. I haven’t done it yet, but that is the beauty of having somewhere to go.

For me, fitness and travel have always been connected. The body allows you to explore more. The more you understand your body, your mind and your emotions, the more you can experience. You can travel outwards, but you can also travel inwards. Both journeys are important.

And if somebody asks me how to begin, my answer is very simple: start. Take the first step. If you want to travel on foot, go a little further every day. You don’t have to know exactly where you will end up. You just have to begin, and then keep moving. Because really, that is what travel is. Taking the first step and then discovering how much further you can go.

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