In the words of Sri V Shanmuganathan Governor, Meghalaya “Shree Seetharam Kedilaya, former All India Sewa Pramukh enjoys divine love everywhere”

On a beautiful day of August 9^th 2012, Shree Seetharam Kedilaya started his Bharat Yatra from Kanyakumari on foot. He started his Padh Yatra towards Kerala then traversing through Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Chandigarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakand. Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura, finally arrived at Meghalaya on the 9^th July 2015.

Throughout this entire journey, covered a striking distance of 15,000 kms on foot and with great zeal to meet fellow Indians living in remote villages, on the seashores, around the mountains, in the jungles and by the banks of the rivers.  Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights. It is a touch of emotions, feelings and opinions, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living together.

I had the opportunity to meet him at Jorabat in Meghalaya on the 9^th July 2015 at 6:00 pm. Unlike our earlier meetings, this one was an emotional one as he warmly embraced me and conveyed his best wishes. He narrated, how he had covered the entire North East and had gone upto the Indo- China border.  Furthermore, he was grateful as he got the privilege to pay obeisance at Parshuram Kund, a pilgrimage centre situated on the Brahmaputra plateau in the lower reaches of the Lohit River  and 21 kms north of Tezu in Lohit District of Arunachal Pradesh. I looked at him with utter admiration and respect as he had no signs of exhaustion or fatigue but was full of vigour and enthusiasm.

On my query on how the experience was throughout his entire journey, his reply was all positive about the people he had met along the way. He said to me: “I could meet and converse with the people of India. I had experienced  utmost love, affection and compassion. In this long journey of 3 years, despite facilities and amenities being made available to me, yet, I chose to use my God’s given feet and walk the entire distance. I did not starve or go hungry. I journeyed through all the States and covered the entire distances with wholehearted  support of the people of India. There are hundreds and thousands of incidents that I have experienced throughout this journey. I came across Temples, Churches, Mosques, Gurudwaras, etc. and it was here that I met people from different communities including Hindus, Christians, Muslims, etc. I met Sikhs, Jain Munis and Sadhvis. I met our Dalit brothers and shared meals with them while listening to their talk about their daily livelihood. It was a wonderful and rewarding experience to have been amongst them”. Furthermore, the undercurrent in India is of an enormous amount of divinity, goodness and divine love of the people which I experienced all along the journey.

He told me that in the coming 2 years he would tour a further 10,000 kms on foot covering the rest of Assam, Bengal, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and finally arrive back at Kanyakumari.

On meeting him at Jorabat, as a mark of respect, I presented him with a Ryndia, a Meghalaya traditional shawl, sweets and garland of flowers. As I spoke to him at length my respect and admiration for him, grew.  There were a few hundred people present there eager to meet the wandering monk of our times.

Travel is the real education. The rendezvous with Shree Seetharam Khedilya has been very inspiring and fruitful and which I hold dearly to my heart.