The Journey: A Testament to Perseverance
For six years—beginning in September 2011—I rode the same path through Hyderabad/Secunderabad. Thirteen kilometers each way, every day. Not a weekend hobby, not a fitness challenge, but my daily commute. Twenty-six kilometers that became stitched into my identity as firmly as my own name.
Evenings were easier. The air still carried the warmth of the day, the streets alive with chatter, headlights, and purpose. Riding then felt like moving with the city’s pulse. But the return was different. Past midnight, when the world had gone quiet, I would climb back onto that bicycle after my 4 pm to 12 am shift. The same roads that had felt vibrant hours earlier now stretched out like endless corridors of silence—testing me, mile after mile.
One day in October 2017, my colleague, photojournalist S. Surender Reddy, captured a frame of that life. Behind me: yellow auto-rickshaws, blurred traffic, the ordinariness of an Indian street. But within the photograph lies something invisible—the discipline of showing up, the stubbornness to keep moving, the quiet fire of those years.
That bicycle was never just a ride. It was a teacher. It taught me that consistency outlasts speed, that the journey shapes you as much as the destination, and that hunger, poverty, and restlessness aren’t weaknesses—they’re fuel.
Eventually, the mode of transport changed. But those six years carved something permanent into me. They remind me that we all have our own 13 kilometers to cover, our own midnight rides to endure. The question is never how long the road is—it’s whether we’ll keep pedaling.
Poor. Hungry. Restless. And always moving forward.
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