Kanyakumari-to-Delhi Walkers will walk thru Mumbai on 26 Feb. Want to join 'em?

25 February, 2012, Mumbai: Do you deeply love India? Are you a dreamer grounded in hard reality? Then maybe you should join this group of people who call themselves Proud Indians, and have traversed over 1500 kilometres on foot through village roads and fields, over railway tracks and across rivers, using GPS and asking villagers for directions. Only rarely have they walked on highways and major roads.

Their mission is to go from Kanyakumari to Delhi, braving the gritty realities of India and touching the hearts of people on the way.

In order to pass through various states, metros and historically and culturally important places, the Proud Indians, who set out from Kanyakumari on December 18, took a zigzag route. They entered Karnataka on January 2 near Mysore. They walked into Tamil Nadu near Vellore on January 14 – Makar Sankranti, the kite-flying festival. They entered Andhra Pradesh on January 18 near Vijaywada. After walking through the tribal regions, they entered Maharashtra from Gadchiroli on February 11. En route to Mumbai, they passed through Nagpur and Pune.

Some parts of this zigzag were covered by bus -- Nagpur to Pune, Chennai to Vijaywada, Kozhikode to Nanjaguda.

And to get a feel of what it means to be an ordinary Indian, the Proud Indians have lived on a budget of Rs 50 per day. They have been sleeping rough, often in places like abandoned tea-stalls.

Would you like to get to know them better? Meet 39-year-old Mujeeb Khan (9849211083) and his 25-year-old pal Vivek Reddy (9397945872) – both engineers from Hyderabad. Mujeeb has been running an NGO called Bhumi and working among people in the slums. Vivek is passionate about Indian history.

And meet their filmmaker buddies Jawad Ali and Faiz Rai (Faiz.rai@yellowstudioworks.com 9908224073). Between them, the philosophical foursome conceived the entire walk, the route and the purpose.

Their target is to arrive at Rajghat in Delhi on April 7, and celebrate April 8 as Zero Corruption Day.

To know more about the walk and the philosophy of the walkers, access the following resources:

· Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/zerocorruptionday

· PDF files and Photo downloads: http://tinyurl.com/Kanyakumari-Delhi-Walk2012

THIS GROUP WAS JOINED BY PEOPLE IN MANY CITIES -- PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME:

1. Umair Hassan – Architect by training, single-mindedly dedicated to cinema as Director and Story Writer. Many videos on the Facebook page are thanks to Umair. Umair, Jawed and Faiz are partners in a film production company called Yellow Studio Works. They have made a documentary for Mujeeb's NGO Bhumi.

2. Uday Kiran – dreamer. Engineer. Looking for personal meaning. Walking to discover his country.

3. "Socrates" – Nobody knows his real name. A homeless deaf-mute person who has walked for the last 500 km with them after meeting them in Adilabad. They estimate his age at 45.

4. Anoop Shekhar -- Architect from Mysore.

5. Shehzad and Fasi Ziaee – Engineering students who love adventure and big dreams

6. Prasanna – Engineer from Bangalore, who is settled in Pune. He gave up his job with Infosys a couple of years ago, and has been working with children, enabling them to use their porential thru the use of theatre in learning.

7. NUMEROUS OTHERS WALKED FOR PERIODS RANGING FROM TWO DAYS TO THREE WEEKS.

Jawad Ali (jawadali123@gmail.com 9949350352) is a one-man forward team. To make arrangements for the walkers and link up with the press etc, he gets to every city a bit ahead of them by car.

To get a feel of what it feels like to have the wind in your hair and the road under your feet, please join the MUMBAI WALK ON SUNDAY, i.e. tomorrow. Starting from Gateway of India at 8 pm, the group will reach Juhu Chowpatty by end of day. Details http://tinyurl.com/Mumbai-Walk

And if you wish to JOIN THE PROUD INDIANS FOR WALKING TO DELHI, IT IS AN OPEN INVITATION.

The onward route is: