Meet biker Esha Gupta, who is on a journey to prove 'India is safe'

Mumbai, Oct 11: At a time when daily reports of sexual harassment and abduction of women as earned India the tag of 'a country not safe for women' and West releasing travel advisories for their citizens while travelling in the country, a woman is doing her bit to send out a message that India is not unsafe.

Biker Esha Gupta, a resident of Bangalore, has decided to cover a total of 20 cities, almost 6000 km, all alone to prove India and its roads are not unsafe for women. In doing so, Esha reached Mumbai, which is the 16th city of her journey, on Friday.

The 35-year-old, who is riding her bike that she bought eight months ago, has said she's out to prove to the world that the nation is not as unsafe as it is being portrayed.

As per a TOI report, Gupta has travelled from Chennai to Kolkata to Delhi and has reached Mumbai via Lucknow, covering the golden quadrilateral of highway network.

"It will be surreal when I complete my journey in a week more after travelling through so many cities on the national highways. Being a woman, driving through dark roads and meeting strangers was a little scary at times. But my experiences were quite interesting and I was surprised to see how hospitable people of our nation are to absolute strangers," Gupta told the news daily.

Sharing her experiences Gupta said people at dhabas along the highways used to get awestruck seeing a woman on bike, but would later be friendly. She has not planned her stays and takes halt at homes of strangers who have been inviting her to know about her journey.

She will leave Mumbai on October 12 and drive towards Pune-Kolhapur-Hubli, before reaching her destination Bangalore.

For her safety, she carries a GPS device along with her to trace her movement in case of a contingency.

OneIndia News