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Photo: The Jagriti Yatra train pulls out of Mumbai Central Station

This is where the Yatra began. In this audio, uploaded at the time of the journey, you hear me talking to Pavan, a student of Information Technology studying in Hyderabad. Pavan describes the journey we are about to embark on and talks with feeling about the recent terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Leaving Mumbai was a powerful moment for me. As the train left the station, I watched Mumbai disappear into the distance. It was late at night and as I leaned out of a window it was quiet except for the sound of the train on the tracks. Inside the carriages, a common feeling of positive anticipation bound travellers together.

Click to find out more about the Jagriti Yatra.

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Photo: Yatris gather on Kochuveli station platform

After spending Christmas day travelling down the west coast, through Goa and Kerala, we arrived a day early in Thiruvananthapuram – 26 Dec. This gave us the chance to visit the coast/beach and to dip our toes in the Arabian Sea, but it also meant that we spent a long evening on Kochuveli station platform. Yatris, huddled together in their study groups, sang songs and played games, but here you hear Gauri, late on in the evening, bringing all together to sound Kathak rhythms and practice yoga before the train, which had been shunted off after our arrival, finally pulled back into the station at midnight.

On 27 Dec we visited Thiruvananthapuram’s Techno Park, set up and looked after by an outstanding management team, led by the inspirational Mr. G V Raghavan. We met the director of resident company, Toonz Animation India, who discussed with Yatris the idea that animators, like all artists, are always looking for a challenge, looking to put something new into the world, something that people hadn’t seen before.

Following this we made a visit to the environmental group, Thanal, and this audio you hear Devika, a young media representative on the train giving her response to this encounter. It was at this point in the journey that I began to recognise how high the level of environmental awareness was amongst the group I was travelling with, and how mindful the Yatra leaders, Shashank Mani Tripathi, Rewati Prabhu and Raj Krishnamurthy were of putting environmental issues at the centre of our experience.

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Photo: On the beach, looking towards Vivekananda Rock Memorial

In this audio clip you hear something of our visit to the Vivekananda Rock Memorial at the very southern tip of India where the Arabian Sea, the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal all meet. Imaya talks about Swami Vivekananda, revered by Indians for his spiritual teachings. Since Swami Vivekananda’s visit to the rock in 1892, it has become a point of pilgrimage and a point at which to meditate on the past, present and future of the Indian sub-continent.

From the rock memorial, a wind farm built by the company Suzlon could be spotted on the horizon.

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]]> 77.53966935568714 8.095127648369356 0 20949.16242139241 0 0.02533448817879773 relativeToGround #msn_C4 77.54155503599895,8.089752591584874,0 Puducherry


Photo: Paper cups, offered with chai at Aravind Eye Hospital

We arrived late in Puducherry and were unable to make our planned visit to Auroville Earth Institute, an ‘experimental’ township concerned with research into sustainable living. However, following a visit to the extraordinary Aravind Eye Hospital, Mr Pashi who helps run Auroville Earth Institute, joined us in the evening on the platform of Puducherry’s central station stimulating debate amongst Yatris about our future social, cultural, environmental and spiritual needs.

In this audio clip, recorded earlier that day, you hear Rani, a medical student, studying in Hyderabad, talking about her respect for the work of Dr. G. Venkataswamy who at the age of 56 set about offering affordable eye care to his local community. Starting off with 11 beds, Aravind Eye Hospital now has 4,000 beds and is admired the world over for the quality of its care. You also hear Rani chatting to me about paper cups…

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Photo: Chetpet Station, Chennai, where this audio file was recorded

I experienced difficulty with my sound recorder in Chennai. Frustrating because during a visit to the Swaminathan Research Foundation, I met up with Shruti, one of the two Indian participants on Cape Farewell's Youth Voyage in 2008. Shruti told me that the voyage had completely changed her life and that she's now applying to take an environmental degree. I stood in awe as she told me how she had been visiting schools and villages in the Chennai area, talking to young people about her Cape Farewell experience, encouraging them to switch off the lights and in particular to plant a tree on their birthdays. Shruti also dropped into conversation that she’d like to work for Cape Farewell in the future.

The audio you hear comes from very early on in the day as all 400 of us crossed the tracks from train to station to venture into Chennai.

The Swaminathan Foundation: home to Dr. Swaminathan, Father of India's Green Revolution. The Green Revolution took place in India, late 1960s, at a time when the country was experiencing severe food shortages and government coffers were unable to support the import of food. Dr. Swaminathan was key in rejuvenating India's agricultural production and remains a keen advocate of food security coupled with environmentally sustainable agricultural practice.

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]]> 80.25022500809396 13.0594415174921 0 9971.084384558781 0 1.828941790766094e-09 relativeToGround #msn_E1 80.2422257454912,13.09101496539999,0 Bangalore


Photo: Solar powered traffic lights in front of Bangalore Cantonment Station

New Year’s Eve. This was a highlight for me. By this time I felt I was really getting to know some of the Yatris and Punjabi dancing on the platform only eased these feelings of familiarity. Please listen to the audio for a sense of the spirit on the platform.

You will also hear Sulabh, MSc Finance - Lancaster University, talking to me about the employment of solar power in India. Our conversation followed a visit to SELCO, manufacturers and distributors of solar panels to rural communities. The director of SELCO made clear that not only did solar technology make good environmental sense, but that it made great social and economic sense. SELCO won an International Ashden Award in 2007.

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Photo: As the train travels towards Bubaneshwar, and following a debate on healthcare provision held for the media in Hyderabad, Yatris continue to discuss the healthcare issue

In this audio file you hear the Yatri Geet (song), created especially for the journey by guru song-writer Prasoon Joshi and sung by Bollywood star, Babul Supriyo. During the Jagriti Yatra a number of debates were staged and televised by CNBC TV18, a national Indian television channel. Played at the end of every media debate, the Geet was accompanied by a dance choreographed by Gauri and performed by every one of the 350 Yatris. The energy the Yatris brought to the dance was remarkable. The words to the Geet can be summarised and roughly translated as:
Come on, let's go! Face the future. Time for change.

The spirit and drive of the Yatris was something that never failed to amaze me. I wondered if the same could be found in a corresponding age group in the UK. Yatris were most often up at six and when we weren’t on our way to meet a role model, to encounter an exciting initiative or to see a place of significance would crowd into the two carriages devoted to debate on the train to present thoughts on Yatra experiences to date; to hear from role models who would join the train at various intervals; and to ask questions of each other, learning from their peer group and the organising team. The third of January was a day spent in transit. Towards the end of the day I gave a presentation on Cape Farewell and its entrepreneurial and creative approach to climate change. It was an odd and strangely powerful experience to be looking at images of ice on a rattling train in the heat of India. We talked about the benefits of journeying; of coming together with relative strangers to focus in a sustained and concentrated way on a particular issue; of how important it is to keep the right side of the brain engaged as we think about how to create change for the better. It was a lively discussion and one that sparked all kinds of new thoughts in my mind.

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Photo: A well dug by the organisation, Gram Vikas

In this audio file you hear something of our visit to one of the 552 villages an organisation, Gram Vikas (meaning village development) has been able to help provide with a reliable and sanitary water source. We were in the state of Orissa. Orissa has 5,000 villages and Gram Vikas has been working since 1979 to improve the quality of life in poor and marginalised rural communities across the state. In this file Ankur, director of a recruitment agency explains that this encounter with rural India is an eye-opener for many Yatris. Pallavi, a choreographer and events company manager talks about her admiration for the director of the Gram Vikas, Mr Joe Madiath, and of the feeling she has, after hearing him talk, that if there is something you care about perhaps NOW is the time to act.

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Photo: The fourth CNBC TV debate, held at Tata Steel Works after a very late arrival in Jamshedpur

We were held at a station in Bhubaneshwar overnight. Asked to leave the train at 2.30am on 5 Jan, I assumed we had reached our next destination, Jamshedpur, and happily went to sleep on the station platform expecting to greet the city as dawn rose. In fact we had travelled from one station to the next and hadn’t even made it out of Bubaneshwar. In this audio, as I talk with Rizat, you hear my sleepy surprise.

It transpired that we had been asked to leave the train to allow for a safety check of the train’s mechanics. We weren’t able to board again until 7.30am and therefore spent the whole of the next day travelling, arriving in Jamshedpur at 10pm. The televised debate on ‘civic challenges’ went ahead but we missed our planned tour around the Tata Steel Works. Yatris were really disappointed. Tata's founder, Jamsetji, whom Jamshedpur is named after, is held up as a shining example of ethical entrepreneurship and I witnessed a good number of Yatris making respectful gestures towards a bronze statue of the man. In this file you hear Ujjwal, an employee of Tata Chemicals, talking with admiration about Jamsetji. Ujjwal was hoping we might see the Works on 6 Jan, but we had to push on, keeping to schedule.

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]]> 86.17996652613644 22.7191105035919 0 49136.6654521391 0 1.590277340731758e-15 #msn_I1 86.17996652613644,22.7191105035919,0 Lucknow


Photo: Dhruv, Cape Farewell Youth Voyager (2008) with Vicky at the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)

I missed hearing from employees of SEWA because my conversation with Dhruv was so interesting. As with Shruti in Chennai, I felt humbled by (and at the same time proud of) the climate work that Dhruv is doing in his community. This audio file doesn’t get close to covering all that he’s up to. I am working on introducing links between Dhruv & Shruti and those Yatris who showed a particular interest in climate change. Another Yatra is planned for a year’s time. I would love to see Dhruv and Shruti join this journey.

SEWA is just one of the organisations we visited during our journey (impossible for me to describe all visits in this blog) that impressed upon me the value of keeping our traditional crafts alive. Dhruv better describes the work of SEWA in the audio than I can here - and yes, great shopping.

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]]> 80.83032621413793 26.77252763414245 0 66384.09236390375 0 0.0732950452175621 relativeToGround #msn_J1 80.91840650983576,26.83240100592985,0 Delhi


Photo: Jude Kelly, Artistic Director of Southbank Centre, taking breakfast on the platform

Jude Kelly joined the journey between Hyderabad and Delhi and in this audio you hear her talking about this experience and what she feels Southbank Centre Artists in Residence brought to the journey.

As next year’s Yatra departs the train will be carrying a greater number of artists, including a contingent from Cape Farewell.

During the journey Jude had Yatris singing Beatles songs, discussing the power of art and culture and roaming into the field of gender and leadership. She was missed when she was gone.

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]]> 77.25098454847333 28.64675693363152 0 21589.8256627654 0 -0.08983994908795083 relativeToGround #msn_K1 77.22118394081821,28.64294119120236,0 Tilonia


Photo: Students of Barefoot College welcome Yatris in Tilonia

What a place. Incredible. Entirely solar powered and teaching others from far flung places how to achieve the same. Please listen to the audio to hear how we were greeted, how we planted trees, how we learnt about solar cookers, how inspired Yatris were. Soumya describes how moved she is by the visit. She has plans to return for a longer stay…

Barefoot College, from where these extraordinary villagers take their schooling:

‘A place of learning and unlearning. It's a place where the teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher. It's a place where people are encouraged to make mistakes so that they can learn humility, curiosity, the courage to take risks, to innovate, to improvise and to constantly experiment. It's a place where all are treated as equals and there is no hierarchy.’

Click here to read more about Barefoot College and Tilonia.

The songs you hear the children singing are about respecting the earth and all those who inhabit it, irrespective of religion or background.

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]]> 75.07676183619355 26.71630931862054 0 22298.27106185796 2.257258686736175e-05 78.59515337709436 #msn_L4 75.07676183619355,26.71630931862054,0 Anand


Photo: Raghu - one of the focus group Vicky worked with on climate change and creativity - in Anand during the last of our stops before returning to Mumbai

After a final televised debate and a finishing ceremony in Anand, the train pulled out of Anand station late at night, heading for Mumbai - the very last leg of the journey, 8,000 km covered by morning.

The conversation you hear in this audio is held at 1am. At this time and at this point in the journey Yatris were very tired (me included). But still they were 100% committed to every last inch of the experience. One of my favourite things on the Yatra, was working with a group I drew together in order to throw around the idea of creativity and climate change. Anupreet, Aruna, Piyush, Raghu, Rizat, Satwinder, and Zainab can be heard in this audio file. The conversations we shared stay with me. I am in touch with each of them and have some ideas about things we might do together in the future.

This group, and their fellow Yatris, stepped off the train in Mumbai to begin in their many and various ways to create the changes they want to see in the world.

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