Suresh Daniel conducted workshops in villages about the benefits of planting trees and ill-effects of plastic ... Read More

BENGALURU: A 31-year-old Bengalurean quit his dream job and walked 3,800km from Kanyakumari to Jammu to create awareness about Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and climate change.

Suresh Daniel , who had moved to Singapore after finishing studies to work in the hotel management industry, would walk every day to his workplace and envy the island city-state's environmental status. "I always felt my country could do much better. All it needed was a little awareness and motivation. I didn't have second thoughts before quitting my job and coming back to India," Daniel added.

After returning to India in December 2017, the young environmentalist began training every day for what he thought was to be his mission: make Indians realise they could change their destiny by halting environmental degradation and adopting Swachh Bharat goals. "Initially, I would walk five km carrying a 5kg weight on my back, and then increased the distance to 10km and the load to nearly 10kg weight," he added.

The man set off on his journey from Kanyakumari on July 27 last year and covered 25km every day. He conducted workshops in villages about the benefits of planting trees and ill-effects of plastic usage. He distributed cotton bags to people he interacted with and sometimes also gifted them saplings bought from a local nursery.

"Walking form Kanyakumari to Bengaluru was the hardest due to extreme climate conditions. It would be extremely hot after 11am and I had to cover nearly 25km within five hours," Daniel said.

He walked through Tamil Nadu , Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh , Telangana , Maharashtra , Haryana, Delhi and Punjab before reaching Jammu and Kashmir .

He got in touch with the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan team to pitch the idea of creating awareness among people and planting saplings across India. The team encouraged him, besides helping him arrange accommodation in schools, panchayats, railway stations, police stations and other government buildings.

Three pairs of shoes were worn out by the time Daniel reached Jammu, where he learnt about the Pulwama terror attack. Forced to terminate his journey, he headed back home. "I was only 100km from the place where the attack happened and officials requested me to go back as the situation was risky," he said.

