FOCUS Bike4Life 2008: India

Returning to the challenge of biking, this event brought together 69 participants to cycle the 550km from Mumbai to Goa.

Photos

You can find a selection of images from FOCUS Bike4Life 2008: India below:

Article: Riding to realisation..

Asif-Aly Penwala reflects on the FOCUS Bike4Life Challenge in India.

Ask the cyclists from Canada, France, India, the Netherlands, the UK and the USA why they participated in Focus Humanitarian Assistance?s premier fundraising event held this year in Maharastra along the Western Coastline of India and you will likely hear sixty-nine unique stories. Yet starting December 28th 2008, we all took the same path over 6 days to Goa from Mumbai, to achieve a common goal, and driven by a common and universal ethical purpose.

How to describe the journey?

I could tell you about the breathtaking scenery of the Konkan coast from Alibaug to Terekol, to be precise, framed on either side by the ocean and lush green hills. Here, I saw landscapes so beautiful and humbling that I found myself incapable and unwilling to digitally claim them as my own. Whether by its abundant and overwhelming presence or glaring absence, the sun equitably and indiscriminately left its imprint on us all.

I could tell you about the challenges of fundraising and training. Confused, but patient shopkeepers wondered why a Canadian born student living in London, wearing a helmet, was talking to them about disaster risk management during their lunch break.

I could tell you about the distances travelled on smooth, winding or rubble roads, as we competed for space with colourful Tata trucks, busses, vans and rickshaws, all displaying "Horn OK Please" stickers and leading by example. Our bells were as inefficient on them as on the revered cows. They meandered on the roads as carefree and unpredictably as the lazy beads of sweat dripping from our brows to the corner of our eyes, obstructing our view of the occasional maze of these proud animals that had to be negotiated while going both up and downhill.

All this contributed to the fundraising event, but I would like to emphasise what I think was the impetus and drive that shaped our collective yet individually diverse experiences.

I am referring to the overwhelming sense of community that permeated our experience and furthermore that informs much of the work of FOCUS, an international crisis response and disaster risk management agency, and affiliate of the AKDN. (http://www.akdn.org/focus)

The spirit of community was evident from our collective commitment to FOCUS and in the care, selflessness, volunteerism and bravery displayed before, during and after the aptly named Bike4Life challenge. In the moments in between meals, breaks, the occasional ferry ride and rich interactions with the locals and their culture, I found time to reflect on this. Peering towards the horizon, overflowing with rays of sunlight that dripped into the ocean and spilled over onto the beaches creating pools of liquid gold, my thoughts wandered back towards Allah, my fellow human beings and my place in all this.

I remembered how throughout Mawlana Hazar Imam?s Golden Jubilee commemorations, we had been reminded of the Qur?anic imperatives to be true to our faith and to care for our fellow human beings. During the bike ride, this connection became clear to me. The ethic of community that was displayed amongst ourselves, towards those that would be helped through the funds raised to support FOCUS? endeavours, and by the donors and friends who supported us financially, emotionally and spiritually, was one way in which we were all putting faith into action, one way in which we were living our faith.

More than the challenges of cycling soreness, camping awkwardness, and culinary weariness, the Bike4Life Challenge 2008 was one way in which we could all actualise the ethical conscience of Islam before, during and inshallah in all of our tomorrows.