Passage to India on a Bicycle

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[Scott Smoot in central India, virtually, at the Pillar of Ashoka. ]

Since September 2024, I've biked 2600 miles on trails around Atlanta. On the map of my virtual tour of the world, that distance takes me from The Red Sea to central India. The bike in the photo is new, purchased this month when myriad worn out parts failed near Narrow Path Bicycles, located along the narrow path that I've taken to Stone Mountain most warm Saturdays since August 2009.

Since 2020, my bike rides have covered mileage between places I've lived or loved. Though I've never set foot in India, I do have three strong long-lasting connections to the place.

First, with friend Julia Chadwick, I taught the history of India to seventh graders in a World Cultures class for many years. India was my favorite unit because I got to talk about Gandhi, Buddha, and a Hindu holy text that I read and admired, the Bhagavad-Gita.

This pillar of Ashoka unites all three. Ashoka came to power through war, but then he imposed "Ashokadharma," rules that replaced warrior culture, animal sacrifice, and superstitious ritual with values of kindness, truth, social justice, and non-violence. For this reason, Ashoka is often seen as a precursor to Gandhi.

Second, I was hungry then (ca. 1988) for more and more minimalist music. My favorite recording was Satyagraha, the opera by Philip Glass that tells the story of Gandhi as a young lawyer uplifting Indian immigrants to South Africa. The story advances through Gandhi's early years, but the text is drawn entirely from the Bhagavad-Gita. A key line is one that I've memorized, more or less: "for the athlete of the soul, pleasure and pain, success and failure, are the same." I Invite you to read my reflection on the opera.

Lastly, I taught dozens of students of Indian descent in the middle grades at St. Andrews Episcopal School in Jackson, MS and at the Walker School in Marietta, GA for 40 years. Whether the class was about history, literature, music, or drama, every one of them was unfailingly courteous to me and to classmates, hard-working, curious, and willing to try anything I suggested,

I remember a jumble of names and faces of students from families of Indian descent. Here are the names I remember, some of them family names, some of them given names: Arjun, Arun, Ajit, Agrawal, Amit, Anuja, Anu, Chakravorty, Gautam, Goel, Gupta, Hisamuddin, Kushboo, Malav, Maya, Nair (Piya Nair wrote one of the most meaningful nice things about me on Facebook -- "In his class, I always felt seen"), Nikhil, Nikhil Moro (an adult friend), Neil, Patel, Rana, Raju, Rahul, Ravi, Sahil, Sanjay, Singh, Srinivasan, Subramony, "Ticha" (nickname for a little guy who turned into a collegiate bike team athlete and helped me to develop as a cyclist), Vijay, and Yanik Desai. I remember all of your names with gratitude and a smile.

Miles YTD 975 || 2nd World Tour Total 14,510 miles since June 2020 || Next Stop: TBA

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