To Ayodhya – on skates, on foot, on bicycle

Ayodhya, Jan 19: Faith is bringing them to Ayodhya, albeit through different means. 
Ten-year-old Himanshu Saini, is skating his way to Ayodhya from his hometown in Kotputli, Rajasthan and has already crossed three states.

Starting his journey, Himanshu after covering 789 km on skates, reached Ayodhya on Thursday.

Himanshu’s father A K Saini said: “Lord Ram is my son’s inspiration and he wanted to be in Ayodhya on such a special day. He covered around 80 km every day, crossing three states and travelled 789 km for 10 days to reach Ayodhya.”

Himanshu is a class 7 student of Sardar Senior Secondary government school and is fond of skating.

Another Ram devotee Sourabh Goswami (31), who works in a private company, began his journey to Ayodhya by foot from Ghaziabad and reached Barabanki on Thursday.

Goswami will be covering 709 km on foot to reach the Ram temple.

“It is the power of faith that is helping me walk day and night to reach the Ram temple. I cover around 40 km per day and usually take a rest at night. I am touched by the fact that in my journey, not a single hotel or food outlet took money from me when they got to know I am going to Ayodhya by foot,” said Sourabh.
A group of 70 people from different walks of life began their journey from Kanpur to reach Ayodhya on foot.

“We are walking around 25 km per day to cover approximately 250 km to reach Ayodhya,” said Anil Kumar Gupta, who works in private sector.

Covering around 501 km on a bicycle, two friends, Akhilesh Chauhan and Goli Pandit began their journey from Agra to reach Ayodhya. “We wanted to test our devotion,” said Chauhan.