Boy, bicycle, a long ride

Twenty five-year-old Tejeshwar TJ, a Mechanical Engineering graduate from JBIET, Hyderabad, hails from Kurnool and lives in Hyderabad. He, too, joined B. Tech like all his friends but he noticed his own interest is elsewhere i.e. photography. After finding himself too passionate about photography, he decided to capture what is around him.

Then he informed his parents about his passion. Though they weren't happy with his decision, he couldn't resist the traveling bug. He says, “I was in the last semester of engineering, when I decided to give up and go after my passion in photography. Travelling is inseparable for me. I thought of doing photography and travelling at the same time. That’s how I got the idea of travelling the whole of India on bicycle.”

While doing his photography course in Mumbai he met his teacher Prachi, Mumbai-based fashion photographer. “She is unlike any other teacher. She used to tell me to think out of the box and it was her motivation and sheer faith in me that I could travel around the country with a dog on my bicycle.”

“On August 12, 2016 after completing the photography internship offered by Mind Magazine in Mumbai, I started the journey. A bicycle is affordable. It is the medium which makes me to go to places and connect me to those interesting things. So, I cycled towards Gujarat and Rajasthan. Meanwhile, I developed a bond with the street dogs too. Finally, I have decided to buy a dog after reaching Jaipur.”

He relates his daily routine while traveling, “My day starts with riding the bicycle and at the end of the day I stop at a place like bushes, trees, and on roads to cook, eat and sleep. It goes on. Before spending the night, I choose places for my comfort zone.”

One day, when he was cycling towards Jaipur, he was stopped by Jonty Rhodes and his team, who highly appreciated his journey. Jonty introduced him to an Australian girl, who was doing 8,000km run from Jaisalmer to Shillong. Jonty was there to support her. He also insisted him to give the dog his name.

His travel to Kashmir led to a documentary. “As a part of my journey through the country, I decided to go to Kashmir with my dog. But when I reached there, I found the state to be in total turmoil. The communication was disrupted with the revocation of internet services. People often got on to the streets protesting against the administration and pelted stones at the military.

This veiled reality catered to my curiosity and I decided to stay there and look for the reasons of the chaos. Then I made a small documentary on Kashmir issue,” he shares. In 2016, I traveled to Mumbai, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir, Jaipur and Hyderabad and again on 2017, I started towards to Pune, Goa and Kurnool etc.

Tejeswar shares, “I travel to every state and click pictures that depict the emotions connected with the land and its culture. I have also started to record the bits of the journey to video-blog eventually. I have made such journeys before but they were not of such huge magnitude.”

“During travelling I personally interact with people and motivate them to explore things and achieve their own passion. I get very good response from them. I try to capture all forms of photography like street, still, nature and nude,” he adds.