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In October 2011, two Spanish women aid-workers with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) were kidnapped from Kenya and released in Somalia after 21 months in captivity.
A difficult time not just for Unni Karunakara, then International President of humanitarian organisation MSF – Doctors without Borders, but a trying time for the organisation, as well. “It was the longest time anyone was kidnapped in the history of the organisation,” he recalls.
“These women were in captivity for much of my three-year term and that did give me a lot of sleepless nights,” says Karunakara, who was MSF’s first and only Indian chief, appointed in 2010.
Far from those tense moments, Karunakara now cycles down the Konkan coast on a 5,0000-km journey across India that started in Jammu and Kashmir in October, after he stepped down as MSF chief.
The bicycle ride is a personal journey, but along the way, he also looks to raise awareness and funds for MSF work in India. But it’s not just about the bike-ride.
As a medical student, Karunakara was inspired by doctors working in places struck by epidemics and humanitarian crisis. “I wanted to speak to medical students, share my experience and may be some of them may be inspired to do medicine in a different way,” he told Business Line , from a stop-over along the Konkan coast, having covered 3,000 km.
Health vignettes Having started from Srinagar at the Sher-i-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences, “Unnicycles” (as the tour is called) traces a route connecting medical colleges, including Goa Medical College, Christian Medical College, Manipal, St John’s and JIPMER, to name a few.
And it’s different stories that he picks up from different places — from mental health concerns in Kashmir to cancer in Punjab. In Rajasthan, people are happy with the State’s free medicine scheme, but the problem is, there’s no one to prescribe it, he recounts.
Funding no no’s Riding along the Konkan coast, he says, “I did not know it was so beautiful.” Having crossed Dabhol, the discussion changes course to Maharashtra’s once infamous power plant, and Karunakara recalls seeing the “destruction” by oil companies in Nigeria.
In fact, as a policy MSF does not accept funds from pharmaceutical, mining and oil companies, he says. “The idea is not to reach out to corporates, but individuals who understand what humanitarian action is about,” he says. Incidentally, MSF does not take money from Governments either. “No funding with strings attached,” he adds.
MSF raised $1 billion from over 4.6 million donors across the world. “People are generous, in India too, they donate to their villages or family-run trusts,” he observes.
On the saddle Over two decades ago, Karunakara had cycled between Delhi-Leh-Srinagar-Delhi. But soon enough, his studies and humanitarian work took over.
Cycling today, he sees a changed country.
Roads in Punjab once lined with trees are now highways through villages, with no people-friendly bridges or underpasses, he says.
But then again, on the earlier ride, he had encountered just two Englishmen biking across the country.
This time around, there are several bikers, “who could well be driving their cars”, but choose to be away from the daily grind, getting off the beaten path, he says.
Karunakara too, seeks to figure out his road ahead in life, while on the saddle, he says, winding up his journey for the day, watching the sun set off the Western coast.
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