PRESS NOTE & GENERAL NOTICE, DATELINE: PESHAWAR, KHYBER PAKHTUNKHWA, PAKISTAN

REPORT ON THE ‘GREAT NEPAL-INDIA-PAKISTAN SPINAL BEETLE DRIVE’ – 17 NOVEMBER 2011

The ‘Great Nepal-India-Pakistan Spinal Beetle Drive’ arrived in Peshawar on 16 November, ending a 1100-mile odyssey that took the 1973 VW Beetle from Kathmandu through Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, Amritsar, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

“It was an exhilarating journey across the friendly landmass of Southasia, and I hope a pointer towards easy land-crossings for people from all our countries,” said Dixit. “Most of our journey was along the Grand Trunk Road, built originally by Sher Shah Suri in the 16^th century. The 21^st century demands that we open this highway for the people, commerce and ideas to flow.”

The journey of the sky-blue Beetle was conducted with three goals of promoting ‘land connectivity’ in Southasia, developing links between spinal injury institutions across the Subcontinent, and raising funds for the Spinal Injury Rehabilitation Centre in Nepal.

“The matter of land connectivity is important because airline links can never provide the mass-level contact that our people and economies deserve. One would want to see the same cacophony at the Atari-Wagah border as at the Nepal-India border of Bhairahawa-Sunauli,” said Dixit.

The trip was helpful in developing linkages between organisations such as the Spinal Centre in Nepal, the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre in Delhi (ISIC), the Mayo Hospital in Lahore, the National Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine in Islamabad, the Armed Forces Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine in Rawalpindi, and the Paraplegic Centre in Peshawar.

As for the goal of raising emergency funds for the Spinal Centre-Nepal in order to cope with sudden rise in demand for its services, Dixit said that a little over half of the USD 110,000 goal had been raised. “We hope to complete our goal through a retroactive campaign because the spinally injured of Nepal badly need support,” he said.

Dixit is a civil rights activist, writer and journalist who injured his spine in a trekking accident a decade ago. The Spinal Centre was started in 2002 and inaugurated by the late Sir Edmund Hillary.

In the ‘Spinal Beetle’ driven by Dixit, he was accompanied by Shanta Dixit, educator and founding member of the Spinal Centre-Nepal. The back-up car, a Mahindra Bolero, included VW Beetle specialist Naresh Nakarmi, Spinal Centre staff member Suman Khadka and Eelum Dixit, doing videography and photography. Social worker Meera Jyoti is chair of the Spinal Centre-Nepal.

The Spinal Beetle drive was flagged off on 4 November by H.E. President Ram Baran Yadav of Nepal. In New Delhi, it was received by Maj. H.P.S. Ahluwalia, founder of ISIC, as well as journalist Kuldip Nayar and actor Om Puri. The physicist and peace activist A.H. Nayyar received the Spinal Beetle at the Wagah-Atari border. Throughout the Southasian drive, the team was graciously hosted by members of the Pakistan-India People”s Forum for Peace and Democracy and other organisations, such as the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development in Agra, and Asha for Education in Lucknow.

Among the many interesting aspects of the trip, from the emotional to the historical, Dixit includes the following:

• The Spinal Beetle team responded to the request of 96-year-old Barkat Singh ‘Pahalwan’ of Jalandhar (Indian Punjab) that some earth be collected from his childhood village of Fatehgarh near Sialkot (Pakistani Punjab). Taking a detour from the GT Road, the team found the place, which had now become an urban suburb of Sialkot, and collected a jarful of agricultural earth for Barkat Singh. (for a picture of Barkat Singh and other images, go to ‘Selected Photographs’ on www.sirc.org.np)
• The memory of Sher Shah Suri, the Afghan sultan from present-day Bihar who ruled from Agra, followed the team through much of the route, which he had regularised in the mid-16^th century as an administrative and commercial artery. His memory was revived by the ‘kos’ markers along the Delhi-Chandigarh stretch, a neglected postal station outside Wazirabad, the great roadside banyans providing shade to travellers then and now, and the Rohtas Fort on the approach to Rawalpindi.
• Having started in the Lumbini region of Nepal, where the Sakyamuni Buddha was born more than 2500 years ago, the Spinal Beetle ended its journey in the Gandhar region around Peshawar, a vast centre for Buddhist learning, art and architecture where the Sakyamuni was first etched in human form a few centuries later. In the Potohar Plateau near Islamabad, the Spinal Beetle visited the gigantic Buddhist stupa at the village of Manikyal.
• Arriving in Agra, the Spinal Beetle visited the Taj Mahal on the day of Eid ul-Azha. It arrived in Amritsar and visited Harminder Saheb (the Golden Temple) on the Guru Nanak’s birthday. Passing Gorkha District of Nepal (named after the Gorakhnath temple situated there), the Spinal Beetle traversed Gorakhpur, the base of the Nath sect, and ended its journey in Peshawar where the team visited the Gorakhnath Temple there, opened only a month ago after 60 years of closure.
• After watching the mock-militarist show at the Wagah-Atari border between the Indian and Pakistani goose-stepping men in khaki, that very evening the team attended a play on Bhagat Singh and his fight for independence, put on by the Ajoka Theatre of Lahore.
• The Bharatpur government hospital in Chitwan District of Nepal was the first stop of the Spinal Beetle out of Kathmandu. The Bharatpur hospital sought help for setting up a spinal injury rehabilitation unit, which is in line with the Spinal Centre’s belief in decentralising rehabilitation. As a gesture of goodwill for the Nepal-India-Pakistan drive, the hospital committee donated NRs 50,000, which was gratefully received.
• In New Delhi, Maj. H.P.S. Ahluwalia of ISIC suggested that Dixit work to set up a Southasian network for spinal injury rehabilitation, given the specificity of the need. There was an enthusiastic response to this idea throughout the rest of the trip all the way to the Paraplegic Centre in Peshawar.
• At the Mayo Hospital in Lahore, the Medical Superintendent Dr. Zahid Pervaiz and Head of Rehabilitation Medicine Dr. Waseem Iqbal provided information on spinal injury and trauma response that had been developed in Pakistan. They graciously offered four-year full fellowships for two doctors to be sent by the Spinal Centre-Nepal.
• In Islamabad, the Nepal team got specific information on the response to the 2005 earthquake which hit Kashmir and the Hazara division. The team invited Pakistani specialists to Kathmandu to share information on the medical, rescue, social work and humanitarian aspects, so that Nepal would be better able to tackle the mega-tremor that is projected to hit Kathmandu Valley and surrounding areas before long.
• In Islamabad, activist and politician Nafisa Khattak introduced the team to the Melody Theatre, which had served as a staging ground for the sudden rush of victims from the 2005 earthquake. Poignantly, this only cinema hall of the city had been set to torch by a radical mob some years earlier.
• In Agra, members of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development reminded the team that while there were 8-9 neurosurgeons in the city, there was no rehabilitation centre.
• The Volkswagen Club of Pakistan (VCP) took the Spinal Beetle under its wings in Islamabad and made sure that the car was made ship-shape after the climb up from the Punjab plains. Discussion was started with the club members about organising a VW Beetle rally from Islamabad all the way to Dhaka through India and via Kathmandu, as an exemplary means to develop people-to-people contact in the Subcontinent. This would require cooperation between the VCP, the Association of Nepal’s Beetle Users (ANBUG), the Volkswagen Club of Bangladesh and the Volkswagen Beetle community in India.
• At a meeting organised by the Pakistan-India People”s Forum for Peace and Democracy and the Islamabad Cultural Forum, Dixit spoke on the theme of ‘land connectivity’ in Southasia. “If on an old VW Beetle can do the Kathmandu-to-Peshawar trip with ease, imagine how easy it will be for everyone else.” At this time of geopolitical rapprochement between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, a special push must be made for land connectivity, he added. “Let a hundred thousand networks bloom across Southasia, in the spectrum from spinal injury to VW Beetles and beyond, to bring the people together.”

More on the Spinal Beetle drive: The sudden rise of the number of patients over the last year has forced the Spinal Centre-Nepal to raise its service from 39 beds to 51. We seek to raise USD 110,000 from the 1100 mile journey of the Spinal Beetle, at the ‘rate’ of USD 100 per mile from friends and supporters worldwide. By the time the Spinal Beetle arrived at Peshawar on 16 November, a little over half that amount had been raised. The Spinal Beetle Rally is also an effort to raise awareness of spinal injury prevention, rescue, care and rehabilitation in the Subcontinent. The Spinal Beetle has done the Kathmandu-Dhaka stretch twice, in 2002 and 2005, and touched base at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) in Bangladesh. The CRP would be a key institution in the networking of spinal injury rehabilitation institutions that is proposed.

For further info see press corner of www.sirc.org.np

 

4.11.11.: After a gracious send-off from Ram Baran Yadav, President of Nepal, the Spinal Beetle left Kathmandu Valley and arrived at the Bharatpur Hospital. Interactions were held for the start-up of a spinal injury rehabilitation unit there, with the help of Spinal Center-Nepal. The Hospital committee contributed Rs 50,000 for the Spinal Beetle’s fund-raising drive. Having come down past Gorkha District of Nepal, crossing the border we came to Gorakhpur, where we learnt in Hindustan newspaper that Pakistan had allowed the opening of the Gorakhnath Temple in Peshawar after 60 year closure.

In Lucknow, the SIPS ‘super speciality hospital’ organised  an interaction with patients and staff, and we met activists who were working on peace related issues, including India-Pakistan people-to-people solidarity. From Lucknow, we took a spanking new superhighway to Agra, which is on National Highway -2, and part of the Grand Trunk Road, whose original incarnation was built by Sher Shah Suri in the 16^th century. We will be following this road all the way to Peshawar. In Agra, we were greeted and hosted by the Physicians for Peace and Development, which is also affiliated with the Physicians for Social Responsibility. At the interaction with the doctors there, it emerged that there is no spinal injury rehabilitation centre in the city even though there were seven or eight neurosurgeons there.  Some time was spent visiting the Taj Mahal, on the very day of Eid, and Agra Fort, the ‘power center’ of the Mughals.

 

In Delhi, a grand reception was organised by the Indian Spinal Injuries Center, with which the Spinal Centre-Nepal has been collaborating since the latter’s inception a decade ago. Speaking at the function, Major HPS Ahluwalia, founder of ISIC, lauded the three-country drive for helping spread awareness about spinal injury rehabilitation, and promised the support of ISIC both for the drive’s fund-raising objective as well as for the Spinal Centre-Nepal. The Director of ISIC Dr. HS Chabra repeated these sentiments, while journalist and peace activist Kuldip Nayar (born in Sialkot) lauded the Spinal Beetle participants for helping to raise awareness about people-to-people contact across Southasian frontiers. At the flag-off, actor Om Puri bowed in a ‘namaskar’ to the Spinal Beetle and talked about the importance of “dignity to the disabled”. Sending the Beetle off on its journey to Lahore, Maj Ahluwalia recalled his childhood in Lahore. He suggested that Dixit work to bring together a Southasian association for spinal injury rehabilitation. From Delhi, with an over-night stopover in Chandigarh, the Spinal Beetle arrived in Amritsar, to be hosted by Tejinder Singh Gogi, the hotelier and significant India-Pakistan ‘link person’. The team found time to visit the brilliantly lit Harminder Sahib (the Golden Temple) on the very night of Guru Nanak’s birthday.

 

The Mayuri Restaurant of Jalandhar: During the drive into Amritsar, the team stopped off at the road-side Mayuri restaurant at ‘bypass Jalandhar’. Only when the Spinal Beetle was already in Amritsar did Dixit realise that he had left all the passports and travel documents at the restaurant. Thankfully, he received a call from the proprietors, the Prajapati family. Upon return, there was joyous handover of the satchel. The grandfather, 96-year-old Barkat Singh, was originally from the village of Fatehgad near Sialkot. He asked that a fistful of earth be brought back for him from Fatehgad.

 

The Spinal Beetle had great receptions at Bharatpur and Bhairawa at the start of its journey. And this was only the start… We realize now how this drive creates bonds between organizations involved in helping the spinally injured throughout South-Asia. Warm welcome, waving people on the streets – go on, little bug!

The SPINAL BEETLE route on an \”upside down\” map
Watch on youtube the route of the spinal Beetle on the “upside down” map – “We put the world upside down”, to bring to spinally injured the attention they deserve!

 

Dear friends,

it has been some time that the spinal beetle got started – so it is the right time to open a blog and follow the little bug on its road.

So far, we had a great time:

On the 3rd of November 2011, the Spinal Beetle left the Spinal Center Nepal to the sounds of a beautiful shell-horn, and went to Kathmandu, getting its map painted as well as the Buddha eyes on the front of the car.

On the 4th of November 2011, the Spinal Beetle was flagged of by the President of Nepal! What a great start. Followed by the Anbug VW Beetle Club cars, the Spinal Beetle prowdly started its journey, heading out from Kathmandu, stopping at Bharatpur Hospital, down to Chitwan.