Preparation and Practice Walks
As you can imagine, taking up a challenge of this magnitude requires a customised program for the preparation and lots of practice walks. I was progressing well with everything but early September my eldest sister Kamlesh Kurichh who lived alone in Narayana, New Delhi passed away. She had been unwell for a while but like millions of the elderly, loneliness is the biggest challenge as we get older. I put everything on hold and flew to India for a week. When I returned to Melbourne, it took me another week to get back into the routine of training and walking because of the jetlag and the circumstances of losing a.
Like the previous two years, I trained with Chris Andronicou Exercise Physiologist at Snap Fitness, Wantirna. Again this year, I trained with Shivam Prasad, Senior Physiotherapist and Manager at Back in Motion, Mitcham. Serene the physiotherapist at the Mitcham practice also helped me get fit enough to join regular classes under Shiva. I am so grateful to all three of them for their professional help to get my body into shape and prepare me for this monumental challenge.
I continued the weekly walks with my young friends who meet every Saturday morning at 5:30 at Upper Ferntree Gully Station and walk on 1000 steps in the Dandenong Ranges. This walk helped me train the leg muscles for climbing the hills through Gippsland and NSW. For practicing long walks, I walked to Flinders Street Station in the city and took a train back home. I also walked to friends’ places, had lunch or dinner and Shekhar picked me up and brought back home. I am indebted to Usha and Dr. Prem Phakey in Glen Waverley, Varsha and Inderjit Monga in Water Ways, Monika and Rahul Malhotra in Caulfield, and Kavita and Dr. Anand Kulkarni in Ormond for hosting us and supporting this noble cause.
In addition to physical and mental preparation, you need to prepare a blueprint for the walk and apply for permits from various local and state agencies. You also need to take out a public liability insurance for $20 million for the walk. All this is a part of the prep work for the walk.
However, when it comes to delivery of the actual walk, it would not be possible without a team of reliable and trustworthy volunteers who would give up their routine work and drive the van to accompany you on the walk. Three volunteers who helped us last year; namely, Sam Vailmuthu, Achala Datar and Sarbjit Angrish, were traveling overseas. Hence, we had to find new volunteers to drive the van for the walk. Our friend Vishal Agrawal flew in from India to drive for a week. To fill the rest of the gap, Bharat Bhai, a part of the Saturday morning walk group agreed to drive and so did Kushal Sharma from the kirtan group. In addition, we had Michael Wang the owner of the van who has been helping us with driving over the last two years. We have Jagmohan Sharma ji who spent over a week last year, once again, he put his hand up to help us. And of course, Shekhar who drove the van for half of total two journeys is again scheduled to join us on 1st of December. I am so grateful to each one of them for their support. With all set to go, we were ready to proceed to the MCG.
Before the MCG to the SCG walk 3.0 began, the story of our walk to support the McGrath Foundation was picked up by the Boronia and The Basin Community News (BBCN) and Bharat Times. We thank both newspapers.
Thanks to our long time friend and family member Rahul Malhotra, I also the Australian Steel Association (ASA) Calcutta Luncheon at the Crown Casino. We raised awareness and funds for the McGrath Foundation (MF) by auctioning off items of MF merchandise. I was also fortunate to meet the famous comedian Peter Helliar who entertained the audience in his own style. This part of the event was most enjoyable. I am so indebted to Rahul for his support for this noble cause.
I flew to Goulburn where our young friend Vishal Oberoi had run a month long campaign to raise funds for the McGrath Foundation. Vishal had donated $1 for every coffee and Orange juice sold in the month of October to mark the 5th anniversary of Cafe 5911. The event was attended by a number of dignitaries including the Hon. Angus Taylor MP Federal Member for Hume and former Mayor Peter Walker. I am so grateful for Vishal's support.
I visited the Civic Centre for the City of Knox and met with the then Mayor Jude Dwight to seek her support for the walk. I also visited the Rocklyn Ashram to seek blessings from Swami Atma before undertaking such a challenging task to do something good for the community.
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