One hot and idle afternoon in late May, I received a forwarded message from our Mumbai Chapter’s Rural Initiative Group (RIG) WhatsApp group.
अशोक सर
नमस्कार!
भुरिटेक गावात पाणी पोहोचवल्याबद्दल तुम्हा सर्वांचे शतशः आभार.
-भुरिटेक ग्रामस्थ
OK, what’s so great… you would think. But it is a great thing, and I must tell you the story.
Halfway to a marathon, and not 40 yet.
The Hop-Hop Half Marathon course is an out-and-back along the levee that separates Portland’s mile-wide Columbia River from the airport. If Shamrock was hilly, this was about as flat as it gets. I think we climbed up and down off the levee, once. The day of the race was cloudy and cold — perfect running weather! I started the run, again in the finisher’s shirt — my friend Gregg didn’t tell me about race-shirt-etiquette until later in that first year. Feeling strong, fast, and confident, I glanced at the GPS app on my phone — 4:38 min/kim (7:30 min/mile) pace! Oops. However confident I might be, I wasn’t that strong and fast. So I slowed a bit, ignoring pace goals and enjoying the run along the river.
My name is Rohit, and I am a runner. I came to running late in life. I am not the fastest runner I know (by far), and will never be as fast as many of the people I run with. The fastest I have come to running a marathon under 2 hours and 30 minutes is running near Galen Rupp and Peter Bromka. But I have come to love running even when I’m cheering and chafing at the people passing me effortlessly on the road.
Global Himalayan Expedition (GHE) teamed up with IEEE Smart Villages to electrify the centuries old Linghsed Monastery and the Lingshed School. The entire project was documented by National Geographic as part of its Breakthrough Series, featuring top innovations of this century that will change the world we live in. The DC (direct current) Solar Micro Grid concept engineered by GHE was showcased as the breakthrough innovation that GHE has implemented to bring access to energy to more than 38 villages in the remote mountain communities of Himalayas, impacting the lives of over 15, 000 people.
The jewel of the mangroves had been luring me since last year to make a visit to Bhitarkanika, a small mangrove sanctuary in coastal Orissa. The name itself had a lyrical ring about it – bhitar = interior and kanika = gold, and conjured up an image of a lush paradise with a hint of mystery and adventure.
For most of us, the land mass called Antarctica is a name we vaguely remember from school Geography, but if asked to name all the continents in the world, most of us would forget to name Antarctica among the continents. That was certainly true in my case, until a friend asked me if I would like to join him and a couple of others on this trip to Antarctica that they had planned.
The recession made me a rather excellent cook.
Back in 2007, when I graduated from my masters at the Industrial Design Centre, I chose not to sit for placements (because I didn’t want to be boxed in to one particular discipline at one particular company) and started my own design practice.
I am an IIT Bombay alumnus from the Energy Science Department. I rode a solar-powered electric bicycle for 7,424 km in 79 days. I started riding from IIT Bombay on 8th May 2016 and, for the next 79 days, rode across Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh to raise solar awareness. I returned to IIT Bombay on the 25th July.