It was a cycle that changed Mumbai filmmaker Rohan Sabharwal's life. Or rather, his future plans. Having discovered a love for the vehicle last month, Sabharwal started out with long cycle rides in the city
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It was a cycle that changed Mumbai filmmaker Rohan Sabharwal's life. Or rather, his future plans. Having discovered a love for the vehicle last month, Sabharwal started out with long cycle rides in the city. "I realised cycling was helping me physically and mentally. I was burning calories, I had started eating healthier, I could sleep well at night and my stress levels went down," he says. Tomorrow, Sabharwal will embark on a longer journey - roughly 2,500 km - starting from Maharashtra and on to Goa, Kerala and Karnataka.
He has teamed up with Bombay Berlin Film Productions, who have sponsored the trip and will be filming the 22-day journey using a support vehicle and Go Pros. On the way, the team will cover at least 30 towns and villages. The aim is to host sessions and discussions on mental health at most of the halts.
Spreading Cycology is the name of the web series that will come out of his journey. "These are stories about the people I meet, the ground realities that are told to me by these NGOs working in the field in these different villages," says Sabharwal, who also co-founded of Crayon Impact, a social enterprise working in the fields of disability, mental health and gender. Sabharwal has been living with Bipolar Disorder for nearly two decades now.
Sabharwal plans to undertake three other journeys this year - down to Visakhapatnam and Pondicherry; to Kolkata via Madhya Pradesh, and to Chandigarh via Gujarat and Rajasthan.
The Spreading Cycology web series will release in April.
Log on to: www.spreadingcyc.com