Anindya Mukherjee

What began as a conventional expedition took this extraordinary avatar and created history. Crossing a distance of about 5000km on a bicycle which was no joyride throughout. Mukherjee had the pluck to cover the lonely and deserted areas in his way totaling to be about two and a half months. The ride started as a tribute to Harold William Bil Tilman, but itself became an inspirational story. On Sunday morning when Mukherjee reached the base at Walvis Bay in Namibia, the moment was perhaps the best moment for the mountaineer so far. Anindya said, “I always wanted to do this expedition; it was my way of paying homage to Tilman. Dreams, I guess are not always easy to achieve but I’m happy that it has finally come true,”
Having started off with the journey from June 24, Mukherjee knew this isn’t going to be an easy thing. It was a test of his survival skills too. Mukherjee said, “As a professional mountaineer, I’ve scaled many such mountains, but this one’s unique. There were days when I had nothing to eat. It was a complete new terrain and I didn’t even know much about the African language. That was a big problem,”
Cycling past deserted Trans-Kalahari highway, Mukherjee were getting frequent thoughts of winding up the plans. He said, “The journey was exhausting at the same time deadly. I had to cross areas which were completely deserted. Thinking about those moments, still gets me goose bumps!”
Mukherjee a.k.a Raja, was the first Asian to have participated in the Mt Elbrus race in 2007.