Covering over 42,000 km in 19 months, the two are now in Agartala, Tripura.

The mom and son at temples in southern India and rode into the north.

Most family pilgrimages involve a familiar set of elements. There is the booking of transport, based on income levels - flights for the affluent, rail for the middle-class and buses for the less well off. Or there is the ubiquitous tour operator. Usually, the pilgrimages are themed – the char dhams, the divya desams and so on.But for Mysuru-based D Krishna Kumar and his septuagenarian mother Chudarathana , it has been just one long road trip.The Sankranti of 2018 was special for Krishna Kumar and his mother as Kumar returned to their Mysuru home in Manasagangotri after resigning his well-paying corporate job of 13 years in Bengaluru. The two had decided on an unplanned trip to temples across India on a 2000-model Bajaj Chetak scooter which belonged to Kumar’s dad Dakshina Murthy. The mom and son took the road out of Mysuru on January 16, 2018, at the crack of dawn.Today, after 564 days on the road, the two are in Agartala, the capital of Tripura - more than 3,000 miles away. But the distance they have travelled is far longer – through 18 Indian states, as well as Nepal and Bhutan.“It all began with a casual conversation I had with my mother some time ago. We live in a joint family, and during the course of that conversation, I found out that she had never been outside Mysuru in her life – not even to the nearby temples at Belur Halebid,” he remembers. As a result of that conversation, Kumar took a leave of absence from his job in April 2017, and took his mother on a car journey to Kashmir from Bengaluru.“Throughout that journey, my mother was holding my father’s photograph and kept saying that it would have been nice if appa was also with us,” says Kumar, whose father Dakshina Murthy passed away four years ago.Returning from the trip and having rejoined work in Bengaluru, Kumar remained a restless man with his mother’s words about his father echoing in his head. At that time, he remembered his father’s old Chetak scooter, and inspiration struck.“My son came and told me about the idea of taking my husband’s scooter on a temple expedition throughout India. I was simply overjoyed about the idea and we soon set out on the trip. Honestly, travelling on the scooter feels as if my husband is with us on our journey,” says, Chudarathana happily.With some basic gear, a cellphone, an ATM card and thick blanket to cushion the backseat, the mother and son set out on their pilgrimage in January 2018. They rode through the length and breadth of Kerala, Tamil Nadu , Karnataka , Andhra, Telangana, Maharashtra before entering the beach state of Goa having travelled for months and visiting numerous places of worship. “We avoid dining in restaurant and residing in hotels. We spent the nights in mattas, temples and ashrams and dine on simple food there. We haven’t accepted any donations and the travel is fully funded by my savings from my 13-year-long career in the corporate world,” proudly adds Kumar.From Goa, their scooter journey continued through Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal, Sikkim before they took the road to Nepal. They stopped at many places of worship in the Hindu kingdom, before striking out for Bhutan. The two then returned to India via Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya and reached Agartala, Tripura on Tuesday, in the evening.“I’m extremely happy to be riding pillion on the scooter and visiting all these places of religious significance. I’m honestly surprised at my energy levels in the trip as I’m always eager to go to the next spot. I’m enjoying every bit as we are seeing new places and meeting new people. This is the best part of my life,” says 70-year-old Chudarathana.For the question of when the ‘pilgrimage on scooter’ will end, the mother and son simultaneously say, “there is more in this big beautiful world to witness and cherish.”