The government also refused to supply water to the village, so the villagers saved and put their money together to get a pipe that brings in water from a nearby stream. Otherwise, we would have to carry water a very long way. There is no hospital. If someone becomes sick, they have to walk for three hours to get help. There is also no school, although there is a village television.
I go back to my village four times a year, where I play cricket, go swimming and work as a coolie to help earn money for my family. There are eight people in my family; I have two older sisters, one older brother, one younger brother and one younger sister. My older siblings did not go to school, but my younger brother and sister do. My family do not live in the village proper, but on the property of the landlord of a nearby plantation, which we look after for him.
My family and the other people who work for this landlord get paid 50 rupees a day for men and 40 rupees for women. [At this time one Australian dollar was equivalent to 30 Indian rupees.] They have to travel a long way to a different village where the landlord lives, though, to collect their wages.
I enjoy studying, particularly English and Tamil. When I’m older, I would like to be a government official to help the people so that they don’t have to work so hard. I think study is good as it helps people get better jobs than doing difficult labour.
Students in the Murray Bridge audience put forward ideas of how education could benefit young people like Valli, Eswaran and themselves: reading and writing, job opportunities, managing money, problem solving, communicating and negotiating, the chance to help people and the skills to change communities.
We finished the talk with questions about Bike, Trailer and the ride, during which the students showed a morbid fascination with the hows, the wheres and the whys of my falling-off-Bike statistics. At least they didn’t hold my bike-riding ineptitude against me, unlike some Danes I could think of.
Monday 7 February
Southend to Mount Gambier, South Australia
84 kilometres – 4 hours 14 minutes
Today I began my media campaign.
Christine, the Adelaide coordinator of Cycle of Learning, and I had exchanged a flurry of phone calls as I made my way through the pine forests leading into Mount Gambier. “They want to meet you at the top of Hay Drive. You should see the signs just as you come into town.”
“OK. I wonder why there. Do you think that’s where the TV station is?”
“Who knows? It doesn’t matter as long as you’re getting some publicity. Remember to mention the website and that you’re tax deductible.”
Christine and I have been friends since the first day of primary school. Even at that stage she was outlandishly clever. Not just smart in that she knew about negative numbers and how to read and write before she started school, but clever in that she had an overflowing imagination, was braver than a five year old should probably be and, in my case anyway, was able to get other children to do whatever she wanted. This worked quite well since I was extremely timid when I was young, and needed someone to drag me along on their adventures with them. For a shy child like me, having an anarchic friend like Christine – who bit people to make a point, hit boys with chess boards when she had to, and organised secret societies that involved you breaking school rules and stealing things – was probably just what I needed to balance out my meekness.
Since primary school Christine has settled down in some ways – I haven’t seen her bite or hit anyone with a chessboard for ages now. What remains the same, though, is how excited she gets by ideas. Eighteen years ago, it was excitement about how we were going to booby trap a bedroom, or about an atlas we were making for an imaginary world. Today it’s excitement about any new undertaking that she or her friends are thinking of embarking on – travel, study, a new recipe. While Christine has been helping me organise Cycle of Learning, this excitement has been so valuable. Instead of falling into a pit of worrying about what I’ve taken on, Christine and her excitement has helped things feel positive and achievable and worth doing.
Adelaide Coordinator of Cycle of Learning is what we decided to call Christine’s role for this project, which she is balancing with dashing off a PhD. She is doing all the things in Adelaide that I can’t while I am on my bike and out of range of phones and computers.
For all her logistical support to me today, Christine forgot to remind me not to sweat on screen. By the time I inched my way up the hill, I was dripping with sweat and – checking in my handlebar mirror – an almost fluorescent shade of pink. It was not the image I had hoped to start my life in the media with. The interview began before I’d even got my helmet off, and was over in a few short minutes.
Perspiration issues aside, today on camera I came face to sweaty face with one of the biggest challenges of Cycle of Learning.
“So, what are you riding your bike around Australia for?”
“To raise money to help support disadvantaged young people in India through high school and tertiary education. And to raise awareness for Australian students about the role that education can play in overcoming social disadvantage … and to promote bike riding.”
It’s not exactly a cause that rolls off the tongue, or keeps the listener’s attention past the to help support … part. I feel quite envious of those cycling fundraisers that can answer with “for an orphanage”. Or “to stop animal cruelty”. Even something like “for world peace” would be more three-minute TV interview friendly.
As well as my dishevelled brush with local TV, I had two schools to visit in town, an invitation to speak at a Rotary club and – in a departure from the caravan parks I’ve been staying in – accommodation with two families for my time in town. One is the parents of Christine’s housemate and the other is a colleague of my mother’s. It was quite lovely to have the hospitality of these families that I had never met before but who were willing to offer their support through loose and stretched out connections.
Now that I was starting to line up speaking gigs, and had people hosting me on my journey, Cycle of Learning was finally being transformed into something real and tangible. In the months leading up to the ride it was at first just an idea-seed, then an abstract future event incubating while I put in hours behind computers, sent out information, looked at maps, got advice, made phone calls and shopped for camping gear I didn’t know how to use. Even once I mounted my bike and left Adelaide, I still felt like I was trying to conjure something out of nothing by claiming “I will ride around Australia and raise fifty thousand dollars”. After 500 kilometres or so, I no longer felt like I was pretending. I was over the first hurdle now that Cycle of Learning had a life – albeit, a very young one – of its own. I was just not entirely sure what it would grow into, and if it would match the ambitious plans spun for it.
Wednesday 16 February
Geelong to outer Melbourne, Victoria
84 kilometres – 3 hours 59 minutes
I rode the freeway from Geelong to Melbourne this afternoon for the second time in as many days. I had been staying in Geelong with my cousin Heidi and her husband Tim. As much as they have to love me because we’re family, I think I may have outstayed my welcome by a few days, half a dozen burritos and a garage break-in.
Heidi made a pre-emptive phone call prior to my arrival on Saturday to find out what I wanted for dinner. I rolled in to a Mexican extravaganza and warm welcomes from hosts I knew well enough to borrow clothes from so I could do a 99% wardrobe wash (I felt asking to borrow a pair of undies would be overstepping a certain line, even between cousins).
On Sunday, Heidi and Tim had some commitments in Melbourne so they left me alone in the house for a few hours with the leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. On their return they were polite enough not to mention the large gap in the fridge where those leftovers had been,