They polished the pearl with every push on the pedal
There’s the cricket
team that secured ICC silver after many years, winning the T-20 World Cup. There’s the chess team that won a Gold at the
Chess Olympiad in Tromso, Norway, fighting well above its weight. But there are teams and teams, those that
compete against opponents and those that compete for their fellow
creatures. The team of cyclists who went
around the pearl that is Sri Lanka to raise money for children suffering from
Cerebral Palsy is special. ‘The Nation’
picks these courageous and inspiring citizens as ‘The Team of the Year 2014’.
Ajith Fernando knew that he would turn 50 within a few
months. He wanted to do something
different. He thought of raising money
for a charity.
Sarinda Unamboowe was thinking about cycling around the
country. Randomly. He was not a
biker. He had never cycled more than 80
km.
Dr Gopi Kitnasamy, head of the Physiotherapy Department of
Durdans Hospital is also the Founder Director of Cerebral Palsy Lanka
Foundation. He was looking to raise
funds. He wanted to raise enough money
to purchase 1000 wheelchairs especially designed for children suffering from
Cerebral Palsy; children from rural areas and poor families.
Ranil De Silva of Leo Burnett wanted to help Dr Gopi
Kitnasamy. There was no plan as
such. Ranil had met Ajith. Ajith had spoken about his ‘birthday
wish’. Ranil spoke of Cerebral
Palsy. Sarinda, Ajith’s classmate at
Royal and a longtime friend, had called Ajith randomly. He knew that Ajith was a serious
cyclist. Fit as a fiddle. Ajith did not know Dr Gopi’s connection in
all this. Ajith met Dr. Gopi. Randomly.
The two discovered that each was
part of the same story. That was the
‘introduction’ to what would become an epic.
That epic was called ‘Around the Pearl,’ the name being given by Yasas
Hewage. Yasas also came up with another
elegant tag, ‘Wheels for wheels’.
Word got around. Leo
Burnett designed a communications campaign around the lines provided by
Yasas. There were some sponsors, mostly
friends who didn’t do it for the publicity.
There was Janashakthi and Orient Finance. Ajith and Sarinda mentioned ‘Olu Water’ who
provided 800 bottles of which 788 were consumed. They insisted, ‘there was no commercial
interest’.
Serious cyclists said ‘yes, let’s do it’. Amateurs like Sarinda and Charlene Thuring
were game. Charlene, incidentally, was
the only female in the team of riders. The
planning, apparently, had been weak but that didn’t matter. Each of the dozen who decided to cycle some
1350 km in just 10 days funded themselves.
They found places to stay and these were the de-facto daily
destinations.
It was for a good cause.
‘There is no “getting-better” for those who have this disease, but their
lives could be made more comfortable if they had wheelchairs; here was an
opportunity to make a significant improvement in their lives instantly,’
Sarinda said. And so they decided to
ride. They decided that riding would help create more awareness of ailment and
need. They decided that it might generate some funds. By the time they finished, those who were
moved by their effort and all the sacrifices therein, moved themselves. They received money or pledges enough to
obtain 700 wheelchairs.
The experienced cyclists may have had some idea of the
challenges ahead, the others may have wondered if their bodies would hold
up. It was unfamiliar territory in a
more practical sense too. No one had
done it before. Indeed, no one could do
it before. As Peter Bluck, another
professional cyclist put it, ‘This is the result of the war ending’.
Ajith and Sarinda concurred.
They said that they went through places whose names were associated only
with the three decades long war. They were not places that had place-names but
war-place-names. These riders, on this
occasion, did not have to contend with security checks, warring groups or
multibarrel fire. There were no
‘uncleared areas’ except those in mind and body, pertaining naturally to endurance
and will. They were duly cleared and as
always through great effort and at great cost.
It all happened from April 10-20, 2014. Twelve cyclists took off from Colombo. They
would head South and take that route around the coast through the Southern,
Eastern, Northern and North-Western Provinces and end in the West. They had one mechanic accompanying them. The support-team could be called rag-tag, but
they proved to be a critical cog in the entire exercise. They encouraged, attended to the wounds,
aches and pains the riders picked up along the way, and sorted out
logistics. The riders didn’t have to
worry about such things. They had, after all, a lot more to worry about, all of
them. That ‘all’ is as follows: Ajith
Fernando, Yasas Hewage, Jehan Bastian, Suren Abeysuriya, Dushmantha Jayasinghe,
Anudatte Dias, Peter Bluck, Gihan Hemachandre, Ravi Weerapperuma, Sarinda
Unamboowe, Charlene Thuring, and the support crew, Ajani Hewage, the Leo
Burnett and ARC teams.
They all discovered that the world looks and feels different
when you are on a bike (as opposed to being in a car). ‘The road is not flat by any means,’ Sarinda
said. ‘When people say “there’s a flat
stretch” they mean that it’s smooth for a car.
In the case of a bike every pebble is a huge bump. The notion of ‘flat’ is warped!’
Quitting mentally had not been an issue, but they could not
tell if their bodies would hold. They
were all sun-burnt. Badly. Some had
blisters. Some were plagued by cramps.
One picked up a pinched nerve in the neck and carried it all around the
island. Ajith said that the body
adjusts, gets better, over time. Sarinda
said that Day 2 was the worst. That was when he had come close to quitting. He pulled through. Everyone did. Ajith and Yasas Hewage, who led the pack, as
well as the more experienced cyclists had helped. One of them would fall back to encourage
those who were finding the going difficult.
‘Ajith and Yasas managed it very well. They assessed all factors including the
physical conditions of each and every member of the team. They would decided
when to take a break and how to deal with particular situations,’ Sarinda recalled.
This, folks, was the hottest time of the year. April. The sun is right above Sri Lanka at this
time. They had an explanation. It had to be ‘holiday time’ because this was
when a decent number of people could take off enough time from work. ‘The sun builds character,’ someone had said
and that line apparently was repeated frequently, with less and less enthusiasm
and more and more irony bordering on bitterness.
Sarinda writes with humor about it now in his blog www.thebonemarrowdiaries.blogspot.com:
‘Mother nature was a heartless old cow. Praying,
begging, pleading, demanding doesn't work with her. I did all of the above
asking her for one cloud, just one single cloud, but instead of obliging
the only cloud the cranky old bag sent stayed over head for about thirty
seconds and then scooted across the road into the uncleared
mine fields we were riding through.’
They could not ride at night. Ajith said that it would have been easy had
they ridden at night, but that would defeat the purpose of creating awareness:
‘we needed visibility.’
Dr Gopi didn’t accompany them. He followed them, though, as did hundreds and
thousands of others, who were treated to blogposts, facebook status messages
and tweets about where they were, what they felt, how they suffered and how
they retained their focus and sense of humor.
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| They've done it. Have we done our part? |
‘It is a truly great thing they have done for those who
suffer from Cerebral Palsy. Few would do anything like what they did. They sacrificed so much. They were away from their families. They
sacrificed their holidays.’ That’s how
he expressed his gratitude.
The ‘team’ appreciated all the support it got. They were all full of praise for the man who
made sure that breakdowns would not derail the project. M.D. Sajith Aruna
Kumara. Sajith was the official
mechanic. He is more than a mechanic
though. He rode with the team. All the way ‘around the pearl’. Sajith, unlike any of the riders, is a
professional cyclist in that he has competed in cycling events and bagging
quite a few titles.
‘It was an amazing experience for me. We covered the most difficult terrains. We were welcomed by everyone we met. There
were Sinhala and Tamil people who greeted us warmly, spoke with us, and offered
refreshments. The security forces,
especially the Navy, were extremely helpful.
The team was wonderful. They all
had good bikes. I just had my “standard” machine, but I knew I could keep
up. In fact I was able to help some of
the riders who accepted with humility whatever advice I had to give.’
It’s still not over though.
Not for any of them. Dr Gopi estimates there to be around 40,000 people
suffering from Cerebral Palsy. This
project reaches out only to a fraction.
He encourages people to contact the Foundation for more
information. The Cerebral Palsy Lanka
Foundation is located at No 7, Capt Kelum Rajapakse Mawatha, Wattala. You could also write to him at gopi291975@yahoo.com or call him on
0777-554328 or 0714-342247. The
Foundation’s website, www.cplanka.org also
contains relevant information.
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| It's our turn to ride now, isn't it? |
It is something they can all look back at and be proud, but
they all recognize that the harder work happens now, obviously. Sarinda, who
was a live wire in that other amazing fund-raising project, ‘The Trail’, which
resulted in the construction of a cancer hospital in Jaffna, is at it. They’ve gone around the pearl (of the Indian
Ocean), but their mental and physical wheels have not come to a stop. Knowing Sarinda, he won’t quit. He will get to ‘1000’ somehow. He won’t stop their either.
Ajith Fernando’s birthday is still a few months away. He won’t forget his fiftieth year in a
hurry. It began as a simple birthday
wish. It became something few would have
imagined a few months ago. He has his
theories.
‘There’s a book by called James Redfield called “Celestine
Prophesy”. It’s like this. Sometimes when you are in tune with the
energies of the universe, when your purposes are good, the elements conspire to
give what you what. Some might call it
coincidence, but it is not. Everything
came together. Everyone came together.’
And then he related how it all began, as recounted
above. None had envisioned the
‘end’. Everyone, though, had imagined a
piece of the story. It could not be
written by any single individual. It had
to be narrated collectively. It was written
around the island of Sri Lanka, a pearl if ever there was one. From heartbeat to heartbeat, through blister
and soreness, the temptation to stop and the will to go on and on and on, these
twelve riders inscribed ‘gleam’ on the pearl, with each push on the pedal. Wheels turned so other wheels could
turn. We are blessed, more than thrice,
one could conclude.
msenevira@gmail.com
