Nikhil

I feel a bit exhausted,  but because of the dirty blankets, I can’t stay for a relaxing day. So I decide to walk very slow. It goes downhill now for a lot of time towards Rohru. Here and there I sit down and at the end of the day I will have covered only 7 km, but I don’t care. I have to take care of me and my feet. Very nice and mindful.

While sitting and enjoying the scenery a car stops. The driver, Nikhil, asked the typical questions. When he understands, that I walked all the way from Germany, already 7 years, his face showed surprise. He left his car and I told him to sit beside me. I just don’t like it, when people ask questions, me sitting, they standing, and I always have to look up towards them. But he kindly sits down. We have a real nice conversation, I show him the article done some days before, Nikhil, assistant professor for tourism in Rampur,  leaves even a donation and says: I will start a campaign with you. I do not know what that has to say…. At the end of that day, I saw on Facebook an article about our meeting, that I walk all the way barefoot and that I like cleanliness. He asked the people to help me in any way. Already after a short time after publishing it was liked so often and people started sharing his article quite a lot of times.

This Facebook article will be shared 420 times within a week and liked 1900 times. Looking on his timeline I could not find any other post which was shared so many times.

This happening empowered me to walk the next day 16 km, all barefoot, my record with naked feet and 10kg backpack until now.

Coming out of nature into district capital Rohru I am overwhelmed by dust and polluted air. A very enthusiastic guy stopped me, a shopkeeper, did not know about the articel. Knowing this he immediately copied the articel and made it his… All the family was happy to have me, but I went, because the owner made himself feeling so important (and we were sitting in the middle of the dust)…… Also it was still a bit early and I did not reach the center yet. A few meters further I was stopped by some people, calling me 100 m back to there shop. First I did not want to go there, called them to the place where I was standing, they came… After some conversation I agreed with that request. The shop owner had a serious request towards me ‚How can I make my shop more attractive? What can I practically do?‘ Normally I can answer something like this only after working there for a while. ‚First you have to clean all the rubbish and dust from your property‘ Lots of shops in the city or even villages lay very close to the street and are kind of small, sometimes they look like shacks. But his shop has some little space in front. It’s a kind of bakery or cakery with some normal shop offerings. The offering area looks clean and need. ‚In the front you can have even some nice tables and chairs, maybe you start with just 2 tables, if it works you can have more‘ maybe 4 or 5 could work. ‚Use some colour and you can maybe even have some coloured flags to attrac attention. If you make your little shop nice, proparbly others in the street follow, situation will improve‘ And when I first came there I saw the empty property beside, which is with a tree and green, but full of rubbish ‚if this would be my shop I surely would clean up all the rubbish here. I would not care that this is not mine‘ and he would benefit from cleaniness because it would shine and lit up his shop. What I always miss, coming from a paradise like nature in India, while entering a village, that even after 100 m into human civilization area you dont feel nature anymore. The clean nature area beside him could change this. So his shop could be connected by the tree and greenery beside his property to nature.

Finally I ended up in a little hotel with smelly everything…… ?